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ODD M The best-seBling magazine for Acorn machines 


^BEST VIDEO 

EDITOR 


0 


All the techniques of a 
TV editing suite at a 


EXCLUSIVE o fraction of ,he price 


Quark blasts on to 
the Acorn scene 


PLUS 


• DTP SKILLS 

How to produce a tabloid 
school newspaper 

• PRINTERS 

We solve your problems 

• INTERVIEW 

Robin Saxby talks about 


Dragon play 

! Have fun reading 
and writing with Darryl 
the sneezing dragon 


AUGUST 

1993 








061 766 8423 

Phone lines open 
Mon - Fri 09.00 - 17.00 
Sat 10.00 -17,00 

FAX: 061 766 8425 


& 


New Acorn Hardware 

Official Acorn Publishing Dealer 


A540 4Mb ftam, 120Mb HD £1995. 00 

A4 4/60 Mb HD Portable 

c/w Acom shoulder bag £ 1 699 . 00 

A4 2 Mb FD Portable £1 399.00 

A500Q / 2Mb Ram, 60Mb HD. 

Arm 3, Acorn Multiscan Monitor £ 1 399. 00 

A5000 / Learning Curve / 2Mb Ram 

as above c/w software £ 1 445 . 96 

A5G00 / 4Mb Ram, 120Mb HD 

'Arm 3, Acom Mulliscan Monitor £1599.00 

A5000ES - Econet System 

Arm 3, Acam Multiscan Monitor £1299,00 

A5000 NS - Network System 

Arm 3, Acorn Multiscan Monitor £1399-00 

A400Q Home Office System 

Arm 250, Acom Monitor £999,00 

A4000 Home Office Multiscan System 

Arm 250, Acorn Multiscan Monitor £1049-00 

A4000HD8Q System 

Amn 250, Acorn Monitor £949-00 

A4000 HD 80 Multiscan System 

Arm 250, Acom Monitor £999-00 

A3010 Family Solution 

Arm 250, TV Modulator £424.68 

A301G f 2Mb Learning Curve System 

Arm 250, Acorn Monitor £680,00 

A3020 /2Mb FD System 

Arm 250, Acorn Monitor £749.00 

A3020 / 2Mb FD Multiscan System 

Arm 250, Acorn Muttiscan Monitor £799.00 

A3020 /2Mb HD 60 System 

Ann 250, Acorn Monitor £899.00 

A3020 / 2Mb HD 60 Multiscan System 

Arm 250, Acorn Multiscan Monitor £949-00 


A Finance option is available 
on the above machines 
(14.7% APR) 

Written details available on requesl 

Acorn Special Needs Centre 

We operate the Acorn 
Teacher and Academic 
Schemes 

Please call lor free information packs 

A540 Upgrades 


4Mb Ram Upgrade £299.00 

T axan 795 VI DC M odes Disc £7 . 50 

Technical Reference Manual £65.00 

A5000 Upgrades 

2Mb Ram Card £110,00 

Dust Cover (One piece) £12,95 

Technical Reference Manual £65.00 

A3000/1 0 Upgrades 

1 Mb Ram A3010 (2Mb in total) £39.00 

4 Mb Ram A3010 £128.00 

A301 0 to AKF1 2/17 adaptor £9,95 

1 Mb Ram (2 Mb in total) £45.00 

4 Mb Ram £128.00 

20 Mb Int Hard Disc (IDE) £199.00 

5.25“ External f/disc buffer £39,00 

Joystick (Quickshot III) £12.00 

Joystick Interface £32.00 

Serial Upgrade £19,00 

User & Analogue Podufe £46.00 

User & Midi Podule £46.00 



Acorn - 3 Years On Site 
Warranty on 
all Acorn Hardware* 
purchased from 
Dabhand Computing 

* excludes Acorn Purchase Schemes / Education Schemes 
A4 Portable / Acom Printer 


A400 Upgrades 


1 Mb Ram £35.00 

2 Mb Ram £65.00 

3 Mb Ram £99.00 

5.25“ Ext. floppy disc int. £39.00 

A4 Upgrades 

A4 2 MB RAM Upgrade £110.00 

A4 60 MB HD Upgrade £350.00 

A4 Battery Pack £50.00 

A4 Eccnet Upgrade £50.00 

A4 Shoulder Bag £35.00 


A4 Technical Reference Manual £65.00 

RISC OS 3 

RISC OS 2 -> 3.1 Upgrade £41.70 
RISC OS 3 -> 3.1 Upgrade £16.17 
RISC OS 3 Hardware Kit A300 £25.00 

Expansion Cards 


Eccnet Module £46.00 

Hawk V9 Video Digitiser £199 00 

I/O Expansion Card £79.00 

Midi Expansion Card £65.00 

SCSI Expansion Card (Acorn) £229.00 

SCSI Expansion Card (Morley) £149,00 

ROM BO Colour Digitisers 
A3000 inc. podule housing £72.30 

A400/A5G0D £72 30 

Aleph 1 

Arm 3 Upgrade £1 75.00 

386 PC Expansion Card 1 Mb £390.00 

386 PC Expansion Card 4Mb £485.00 

486 PC Expansion Card 4Mb £585.00 


Standard Monitors 


Acorn Colour £ 1 99 .00 

Microvitec Cub 3000 £199.00 

Philips Mono (Green) £85.00 

All monitors come with free lead. Slato type of 
computer when ordering. 

Multiscan Monitors 

Acom Mu iti scan AK F 1 8 £2 99 . 00 

Taxan 795 Muftivision £449,00 

Floppy Disc Drives 

5.25" Single 40/80 no psu £95,00 
5.25* Single 40/80 with psu £109.00 
5.25" Dual 40/80 no psu £185.00 

5.25" Dual 40/80 with psu £1 99.00 

3, 5" Si ngle with ps u £85.00 

3.5" + 5,25" 40/80 with psu £209.00 

Printers 

Canon Bubblejet BJ- 1 Oex £1 72,00 

Canon BJ 1 0ex i nc . turbo driver £2 1 9 .00 
Sheetfeeder for BJ-1 Oex £48.00 

Canon BJ200 £299.00 

Canon BJC8QQ (col,) inc. s/w £1 469.00 

Citizen 120D+ £114,00 

Citizen Swift 9 £169.00 

Citizen Swift 240 £239.00 

Colour Kit for above £29.00 

Citizen Swift 200 £199,00 

Citizen Swift 200 Colour £225.00 

Citizen Swift 128K Memory £35,00 

I nteg rex Colou rjet 132 £519.00 

HP DeskJet 500 £299.00 

HP DeskJet 550C £449.00 

Laser Direct (LBP4 H i Res ,) £849.00 

Laser Direct (LBP8 Hi Res,) £1279 00 

Econet 

Level 4 AU N Softwa re £399 . 00 

Scanners 

Flatbed A4 256 Grey SCSI (CC) £745.00 
Flatbed A4 without SCSI card £585.00 

Scan J unior Scan ner 256 £ 1 99.00 

Scanlight Senior Scanner A4 £289,00 

Sheet Feeder for above A4 £135.00 

Fax 

Fax Pack (CC) £259.00 


Printer Drivers 

Midnight Graphics 


Citizen Swift 9 Sprite Dump £26.04 

Citizen Swift 24 Sprite Dump £26,04 

Epson 24 Sprite Dump £26,04 

HP DeskJet 500C Sprite Dump £26.04 

HP PaintJet Sprite Dump £26.04 

Integrex 132 Sprite Dump £26.04 

I nteg rex Colou reel Sprite Dump £26,04 

Juki 5520 Sprite Dump £26.04 

Star LC 10 Sprite Dump £26,04 

Star X824 Sprite Dump £26,04 

Star LC200 Sprite Dump £26.04 

Star LC24-200 Sprite Dump £26,04 

Ace Computing 

Printer JX (Colour Dot Matrix) £1 4.00 

Printer DJ (Deskjet 500C) £1 4.00 

Printer PJ (PaintJet) £14.00 

PRO Drivers (All) £40.00 

Beebug 

Deskjet 500/S50C Driver £15.00 

Star/Epson/Citizen (Colour) £15.00 

Electronic Font Foundry 
BubbleJet ■ BJ10e/130e £10.00 

Cables 

Arc - 1 5 Pin to 9 Pin Adaptors £9.95 

Arc - Monitor - 8833 inc sound £8.65 

Arc - Monitor - 8833 II inc sound £8.65 

Arc ■ Parallel Pri nter Cabl e £5 ,00 

Keyboard Extender 400/500 £7.50 

Mouse Extender £7.50 

BBC Software 

Blob 1 £18.00 

BEob 2 £18.00 

C hick Chase (80 T rack Only) £15.00 

E-Type £13.00 

Master Break £10.39 

Modem Master £11.26 

Play it Again Sam Mo's 1-16 ea. £1 1.95 

Reve real s (80 1 rack Only) £20.00 

UIM £14.95 

Where's Blob £18,00 

Master Compact 

Play It Again Sam No's t - 1 6 ea. £13.00 

UIM £14.95 

Archimedes Software 

4 Matte n 

Chameleon £35.00 

Desktop Basic Editor £25.00 

Jiglet £25,00 

Jigsaw £27.00 

Moot £50.00 


Poster 

£75.00 

SmArt 

£50.00 

SmArtFiler 

£32.00 

Snippet 

£35.00 

Vector 

£75,00 

Ace Computing 


ArcLight 

£40.00 

Euclid 2 

£40,00 

Mogul 

£17.00 

Splice 

£26.00 

Tween 

£26.00 

Acorn Computers 


1st Word Pius 

£65,00 

Desktop Assembler (V 2} 

£119,00 

Desktop C (V 4) 

£180.00 

Font Starter Pack 

£39.00 

Newhail Font Pack 

£39.00 

PC Emulator / Free Shareware 

£95,00 

TCP/IP Programers Pack 

£50,00 

TCP/IP Protocol Suite 

£199.00 

Arxe Systems 


MulliFS 

£27.00 

Beebug 


DeskEdit 2 

£25.00 

Desktop Thesaurus 

£19.00 

Hard Disc Companion 2 

£45.00 

Hearsay II 

£69.00 

Masterfile 3 

£49.00 

Ovation 

£85.00 

Playback 

£17.00 

Brilliant Computing 


Everyday Signs 

£20.00 

Joystick Games 

£20.00 

Streetwise 

£20.00 

Switch On 

£20,00 

Switch On Actions 

£20.00 

Teds Adventures 

£20.00 

Clares Micro Supplies 


Artisan 2 

£45.00 

Fervour 

£19,00 

Illusionist 

£79.00 

Interdlctor 

£10.00 

Interdictor II 

£23.00 

ProArtisan 

£70.00 

Render Bender 2 

£99.00 

Rhapsody 2 

£45.00 

Schema 

£90.00 

Coin Age 


Pesky Muskrats 

£14.00 

Colton Software 


Pipedream 3 

£73.00 

Plpedream 4 

£124.00 

Wordz 

£88.00 

Computer Concepts 


AvanteGarde Font Pack 

£24.00 
































Artworks 

£129.00 

Bookman Fort Pack 

£24.00 

Canon BJIGe/x Driver 

£42.00 

Canon BJC800 Driver 

£95.00 

Compression 

£34.00 

Equasor 

£37.00 

Graphics Card 

£249,00 

Impression II Borders Disc 

£12.00 

impression Business Suppliment £39.00 

Impression ED Fras Drawfile Drsc 

£124,00 

Impression Junior 

£69.00 

Inter- Word 

£29.00 

Show Page 

£109.00 

Cygnus Software 


Iron Lord 

£14.00 

Tower of Babel 

£14.00 

Twin World 

£14,00 

Dabhand Computing 


Arc DFS 

£22.00 

Database Software 


Fun School 3 under 5s 

£16,95 

Fun School 3 5-7 year olds 

£16.95 

Fun School 3 over 7s 

£16,95 

Fun School 4 under 5s 

£20.00 

Fun Schoot 4 5-7 year olds 

£20.00 

Fun School 4 7-1 1 year olds 

£20.00 

Do mark 


3D Construction Kit 

£25.00 

Mig29 Super Fulcrum 

£29,00 

Trivial Pursuit 

£22.00 

Dyslexia Software 


Specialist software for all ages ■ 

home / education 


Call for details 


Empire 


Pipemania 

£16.00 

Electro music Reasearch 

Creations Discs 1-8 ea. 

£19,00 

MIDI Analyser 

£29.00 

Microstudic 

£78.00 

Music Player 

£35.00 

Rhythm Box 

£29,00 

SoundSynth 

£39.00 

Studio 24 Plus 

£149.00 

ESM 


Desktop Folio 

£79.00 

Hybrid 


Elite 

£31.95 

Icon Technology 


Easi Writer 

£115.00 

TechWriter 

£195.00 

Krisalis Software 


Champions Collection - Leader Board / 

Man. United / Squash / Boxing 

£22,00 

Chuck Rock 

£19,00 

Gods 

£19.00 

Hero Guest 

£22,00 

James Pond 

£19.00 

Krisalis Collection - Pipemania f 


Revelation / Mad Professor Mariarli / 

Terramex 

£22.00 

Lemmings 

£19.00 

Mad Professor Maria rti 

£14.00 

Manchester United Europe 

£19.00 

Nebulus 

£19,00 

Populous 

£22,00 

Swiv 

£19.00 

Turbo Challenge s 

£19.00 

World Champ. Boxing Manager 

£1800 

World Championship Squash 

£18,00 

Leading Edge 


A3Q1G Joy master 

£24.00 

Investigator 11 

£22.00 

Joystick Interface (Ail Models) 

£32.00 

Desktop Tracker 

£74.00 

Lingenuity 


CableNews 

£149,00 

HotLink Presenter 

£29,00 

Presenter GTi 

£69.00 

Longman Logotron 


ArcComm 2 

£49.00 


Eureka! 

£99.00 

First Logo 

£23.00 

Landmarks Aztec 

£19,00 

Landmarks Columbus 

£19,00 

Landmarks Egypt 

£19.00 

Landmarks Rainforest 

£19.00 

Landmarks Victorians 

£19,00 

Landmarks World War II 

£19.00 

Magpie 

£40.00 

Notate 

£49.00 

Numerator 

£60.00 

Numerator Chaos 

£18.00 

Pendown Plus 

£69.00 

Pendown Outline Fonts 

£18.00 

Pinpoint 

£75,00 

Pinpoint Junior 

£23.00 

Revelation 2 

£95.00 

Revelation image Pro 

£139.00 

S-Base Personal 

£89.00 

S-Base Developer 

£169.00 

Sky Hunter 

£22.00 

MieroPower 


Chess 3D 

£14.00 

Zelanites 

£15,00 

Midnight Graphics 


ClipAri t / Clipart 2 each 

£29.95 

Express 

£51,02 

Tracer 

£52.13 

Minerva Software 


Applications 


Ancestry 

£59.00 

Atelier 

£69.00 

Cadet 

£149.00 

Desktop Office 2 

£79.00 

Easiword 2 

£54.00 

Flexifile 

£89.00 

Graphbox 

£55,00 

Graphbox Professional 

£105,00 

Home/Club Accounts 

£34,00 

Linkword - French 

£35.00 

Linkword - German 

£35,00 

Linkword - Spanish 

£35.00 

Multistore 11 

£179.00 

PCAccess 

£19,00 

Prime Art 

£69.00 

Leisure 


Bughunter in Space 

£11,00 

Bug Hunter I Moon Dash 

£11.00 

Casino 

£11.00 

Caverns 

£11.00 

Family Favorites 

£11.00 

Freddy's Folly 

£11.00 

Hoverbod 

£11,00 

Ibix the Viking 

£11,00 

Jet Fighter 

£11.00 

Madding ly Hall 

£11.00 

Orion 

£11.00 

Redshift 

£11.00 

Talisman 

£11.00 

Thundermonk 

£11.00 

Northwest SEMERC * 


Conform Keyboard Software 

£18.00 

le Monde a Mol 

£18.00 

Meine Welt 

£18.00 

My World [Program) 

£18.00 

My World 2 

£28.00 

My World - Christmas Disc 

£9.00 

My World - Design 

£9,00 

My World ■ Fuzz Buzz 

£12.00 

My World - Geog, Key Stage 1 

£9,00 

My World - I'm Special 

£9.00 

My World - Nursery Disc 

£9.00 

My World -Maths 

£9.00 

My World - Patterns 

£9.00 

My World - Sampler 

£9.00 

My World - Skeletons 

£9,00 

My World - Village/Town 

£9.00 

Oldham Keyboard 

£99.00 

Full Phases 

£28.00 

Phases 3 

£18.00 

Phases - Borders disc 

£9,00 

Phases - Christmas disc 

£9.00 

Phases - Clip Art 1 

£9.00 


Phases ■ Very Hungry Caterpillar £9.00 

* Please add C2.50 P&P to SEMERC Software 

Oak Solutions 


Draw, Print and Plot £39.00 

Genesis IE £99.00 

Worm Battle £10 00 

WorraCAD £74.00 

Sherston Software 

Draw Help £15.95 

IHelp (RISC OS 2) £7,95 

IHelp 3 (RISC OS 3) £9.95 

An i mated Alphabet £1 9.00 

Arc venture I ■ Romans £25.00 

Arcventure II ■ Egyptians £25,00 

Badger Trails £35,00 

Dreamtime £20.00 

Farm £19.00 

Fleet Street Phantom £23.00 

Glimpse £8.50 

Mapventure £23,00 

Micro bugs £25.00 

N atu re Park Adve ntu re £24. 50 

SelladoreTaies £24.00 

Space Mission Mada £23,00 

Stig of the Dump £22.00 

Story Starts £25.00 

Teachers Cupboard £24.50 

Teddy Bears Picnic £23.00 

Viewpoints £35.00 

Wiza rets Reve nge £ 1 7.00 

Worst Witch £21,50 

S IM MIS 

Flight Sim Toolkit £31 .00 

Superior Software 

AirSupremacy £14.00 

Conqueror £15.00 

Hostages £14.00 

Master Break £14,00 

Play it again Sam 1 £ 1 9.00 

Repton 3 £14.00 

Speech! £14,00 

Superior Golf £14.00 

Technodream £19.00 

The Last Ninja £19,00 

Zarch £14.00 

The Data Store 

FontFX £9-95 

ShapeFX £9.95 

The Fourth Dimension 
Apocalypse £14.00 

Arctic ulate £14.00 

Arctist £14.00 

Boogie Buggy £14.00 

B reak 1 47 / Superpool £25. 00 

Black Angel £28,00 

Cataclysm £18.00 

Chocks Away 2 £18.00 

Chocks Away Extra Missions £1 4.00 
Chocks Away 2 + Exl. Missions £27,00 
Chopper Force £22.00 

E-Type Compendium £18.00 

Enter The Realm £18.00 

Grievous Bodily ARM £18.00 

Holed Out Compendium £1 8.00 

Nevryon £14.00 

Pandora's Box £18,00 

Powerband £14.00 

Pysanki £14.00 

Saloon Cars - Deluxe £25.00 

The Real McCoy 1 £23.00 

The Real McCoy 2 £23.00 

The Real McCoy 3 £23.00 

The Wimp Game £14.00 

X-Fire £16.00 

Triple R Education 

10 out of 10 English £19.00 

1 0 out of 10 Maths £19.00 

1 0 out of 1 0 Early Essenl i als £ 1 9.00 


Books (No VAT) 

Archimedes Assembly Language £14.95 
Archimedes Ope rati ng System £1 4,95 
The above books haw accompanying discs add £5 
(Of 5.25“, E7 for 3.5“ 


C: A Dabhand Guide 3rd Edition £1 6.95 

A30Q0 T ech nical G uide £29,95 

Assembler Release 2 £25.00 

BASIC V; A Dabhand Guide £9.95 

BBC Basic Guide (Acorn) £19,95 

Budget DTP (Draw & Edit) £12.95 

DTP Seeds (4Mation) £8,45 

Desktop C Release 4 £25.00 

Desktop Development UG £25.00 

Graphics on the Arm ■ A DHG £1 4.95 

First Word Plus - Dabhand Guide £ 13.95 
as above with disc £21 .90 

Impression - Dabhand Guide £14.95 

as above with disc £ 16.95 

Ml 28 Ref. Man.Pts 1&2 (ea.) £14.95 

Programming in Ansi C £ 14.95 

RISCOS3 PRM’s £TBA 

Understanding Spreadsheets £9.95 


Hours of Opening 

Monday - Friday 9.00 a.m. - 5.00 p.m. 
Saturday 10-00 a.m. - 5,00 p.m. 
Lurch 1,00 p.m. - 1,30 p.m. 

How to find us 




■E 









Important Facts 

• NO Minimum Order 
Value 

• NO Carriage Charges in 
Mainland UK 

• ALL Goods Despatched 
within 24 Hours, subject 
to stock levels 

• Acorn Education Dealer 

• Acorn Qualified Dealer 

• Acorn Service Centre 

• Hotline Support on all 
Hardware and Software 
purchased from us 

Terms & Conditions 

TERMS; EC residents add 17,5% VAT U> alt prices, 
except books. Carriage ‘FREE on all ilerms in the 
UK (*wilh the exception d “remote" areas). Foreign 
orders, carriage at cost, (quotations available). 
Access/Visa cards accepted, Dabhand Computing 
Ltd. is a Qualified Acorn Dealer. Official orders 
accepted from public sector/edncatiorVFLCs, 
otherwise cash wiiti order. Tender invitations 
welcome. Callers welcome. We are 2 minutes north 
al JIT, M62. Prices subject to change without 
ratification. Goods ollered subject to being unsold. 



COMPUTING 


DABHAND COMPUTING LTD 
5 Victoria Lane 
W h i t e f i e l d 
Manchester, M 2 5 6 A L 







































7 News 

15 Graphics 

16 Comms 

19 Public Domain 

Our new monthly guide to the world of Public Domain software 

21 Education 

27 Learning curve 

The column for new us 

52 Letters 
64 The subscriber's 
97 Free ads 
108 Next month 

112 The Moxon inte 

Arm Ltd's MD Robin Saxby spills the beans on the future of the Arm chip 



29 The cutting edge 

Professional video editing on the Archimedes 

47 In Brief 

HCCS' HiVision digitiser and a magneto-optical drive from The Serial Port 

55 Education plus 

Hutchinson's Encyclopedia, Darryl the Dragon and Amazing Maths 

59 Game show 

Exclusive preview of Oregan's new shoot-em-up Quark, and more 


PVbfehed fay Redwood Publishing, a BBC 
S Enterprises Company. 101 fayham Strep:, 
Si: Loreto MW l DAG. TeJ; 07 1 33 1 SCGO Fax; 

^'33t SOD 1, Typesetting and colour by 
V Trumps Studo, Ware, Hefts, Printed by 
1 Oadfey Print Ltd, West Midlands. 

Distributed by B3C frontline, P^rk House, 

1 17 Part; Road, Peterborough © Redwood 
Publishing 139 3. AH dgfais reserved. Acorn is a 
registered trademark of Acorn Computers Ltd. 



7777 registered data usw. 1 SSN 0263 
7456. 


Editor Karen Donaghay 

Technical Editor Mark Moxon 
Production Editor John Rennie 
Art Editor Ton/ Judge 
Contributing editors 
Ian Burley (News) Sam Greenhill (Games) 
Group Advertisement Manager 
Duncan Pringle 
Advertisement Manager 
Richard Power 


Advertising Sales Executive 

Jonathan Hull 

Ad Production Controller Fiona Senior 
Production Controller Fiona Andrews 
Ad Services Manager Ray Kelly 
Managing Director Michael Potter 
Editorial Director Christopher Ward 
Publishing Director Seamus 
Geoghegan 

Publisher Robert Marriott 


Promotions Executive Jane 

McCann 

Reader services department; 

071-331 8022 

COVER George Snow 

Oscar courtesy of Robert Harding 

Subscription enquiries and back 
copies: (0483) 727762 
Annual subscription rate: 

£22,95 including our exclusive 
monthly subscriber s disc 


2 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 



AUGUST 1993 



24 Read all about it 

The staff and pupils of Harlington Upper School use Ovation to put 
together a complete school newspaper. How do they do it? 


41 Getting into print 

Ail your problems with printing and printer drivers solved 

49 Business matters 

Creating professional stationery using nothing more than Draw 

HANDS ON 


68 Morph for less 

Morphing is the hippest video effect at the moment, and with the Acorn 
User morphing package you can do it at home 

71 Back to basks 

The first part in our series which will teach you how to write your own 
programs using Basic V 



This man knows more about the future of the Arm chip set than 
anyone. Turn to page 1 12 to discover the next step for Arm Ltd 



75 A new dimension 

More three-dimensional programming, this time in the form of polygon 
dipping and object storage J 

79 Questions and answers 

Induding Acorn's customer hotline column 

83 Hints and tips 

85 Not so baby Bio 

The ever-popular Bio application gets a facelift, and receives a number of 
additions to its family of modules 




87 *INF0 

Cockroaches, one-line fruit machines, virtual directories... will it never end? 

99 Yellow pages 



Editor’s letter 


When an Acorn A54G is used to edit TV programmes, [ike BBCs Watchdog or Channel 4's Dispatches, 
then you know there must be an Impressive application at work behind the scenes. The 
application in question is known as Optima and gradually making its mark In the TV world. 

Then take that same piece of software and cut out the parts that are only useful to a 
professional programme maker. Finally, cut the price to fit , 

the demands of a school or home budget and what do you j(_ 
get? Turn to page 29 to see our verdict, 


EXCLUSIVELY PRODUCED ON 
ACORN MACHINES 

All the editorial pages in BBC 
Acorn User are produced 
using Acorn computers. 
Computer Concepts' 
impression 2, LaserDirect printers 
and Taxan monitors 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 3 




The ideA range 

ICS was the first company to 
offer IDE products for Acorns 
back in 1 990; now they are the 
standard choice for new Acorn 
computers. Building on three 
years’ experience we have com 
ti nually improved our IDE filing 
system. It now offers the highest level of RISC OS compliance, 
and compatibility with at least 45 different hard discs tested by 
us. Can any other supplier make this claim? 

Our IDEFS abolishes the RISC OS limit of 512 Mb, and offers 
extra features such as password protection, background 
operation, disc partitioning, and power saving (which allows 
some discs to stop spinning when idle). 

Partitions can have different levels of protection. Family or 
pupils can access some of your files while you keep others 
safely out of their reach. Or you can simply protect the whole 
disc (reformatting is not required for this). 

Our hard disc upgrade kits are based around two internal 
interfaces at present: IDEA3IN for the A3000 Series, and 
IDEARCIN for the A3QG/A400/A50G Series. All kits are 
designed to a high standard and include all the parts you witl 
need, 

IDEA3IN upgrade kits include an l 2 C expansion socket as 
standard. They come with a 2Vz " disc already attached, and 
are e'asy to fit once you have opened up your computer. False 
rumours have been spread in the past (by sellers of SCSI hard 
discs) that internal upgrades might not be safe in an A3000. In 
three years we have never heard of an actual problem, but 
please ask Acorn’s Technical Department if you wish to be 
reassured. 

IDEARCIN upgrade kits provide a fast 16-bit link all the way 
from the computer to the hard disc. They can even be fitted to 
an A310 without a backplane - quite a cost saving. A second 
hard disc can easily be added later if required. 

Interfaces and hard discs can also be bought separately. By 
shopping around you may even save a few pounds. But 
beware: not ail IDE hard discs work with all interfaces, and if 
you have a problem if may be difficult to decide who should 
put it right. We recommend buying a complete kit from one 
source. 

M 9ZEQ is the name given to our IDE filing system when it is 
supplied as a single rom chip. WizzoS is for the A50GG, and 
Wizzo4 is for the A4. You should buy a Wizzo if you need 
password protection or wish to use larger hard discs, (Wizzo4 
has been delayed slightly - we are adding a feature to ensure 
compatibility with possible future A4 upgrades), 

A Wizzo rom by itself will only produce a slight speed improve- 
ment. If you need speed in an A500G, fit an IDEARCIN 
interface instead. Up to 60% improvement can then be 
achieved, but this does depend which hard disc you use so do 
check with us first. 

How to read our ideA product references 

A number at the end is the nominal hard disc capacity in 
megabytes. We usually round this down, so the actual for- 
matted capacity may be higher. All discs have auto-parking. 
Average access times vary but all are below 20 ms. 

All prices shown exclude VAT and are subject to change 
without notice. The cost to us for hard discs can vary enor- 
mously from week to week - not always downwards! Your 
local dealer can obtain ideA products from us or from a 
distributor. 



ft Archimedes A300/A400/A5GG Series Internal Upgrades 


Package includes formatted hard disc , ideA interface card f 
hard disc cradle and fittings, fan kit, replacement multi-purpose 
LED (power and drive status ), manual with fitting instructions. 
Can be fitted to an A310 without a backplane, tf a backplane is 
used it must be a 4-layer type. Easily fitted by most users . 


IDEARCIN 80 £225 

IDEARCIN 100 £255 

IDEARCIN 120 £275 

IDEARCIN 170 £305 


IDEARCIN 240 

£425 

IDEARCIN 330 

£500 

IDEARCIN 426 

£575 

IDEARCIN 540 

£799 


ft A30GG Series Fully Internal Upgrades 

Package includes formatted hard disc mounted on ideA 
Interface card [ manual with fitting instructions. Fully internal 
using internal expansion slot , Co-exists with floppy drive and 
memory upgrades. Fits the new 1992 computers. Easily fitted 
subject to Acorn warranty stipulations. 


IDEA3IN 40 

£225 

IDEA3IN 120 

£350 

IDEA3IN 60 

£275 

IDEA3IN 130 

£450 

IDEA3IN 80 

£325 

IDEA3IN 209 

£499 

A3000 FAN KIT (not usually required') 

£19 


*Only required if the computer has been fully upgraded t a g. 
with maximum memory AND Econet AND an external poduie. 

ft Separates for hard disc upgrades 

We can only guarantee the performance of IdeA interface 
cards with hard discs we have tested ourselves , so please 
check if in doubt . If you are buying a hard disc for an A5000 
please say so. if you intend to fit the disc in addition to an 
existing one we need to know the make and model of the 
existing disc . Acorn's interface does not support ail makes of 
disc, and some models wifi work as a second disc but not on 
their own : 

Hard discs on their own are listed as, for example, IDEA 80. 
An S at the end indicates a 2te u disc. 

IDEARCIN (Archimedes Interface for Internal disc(s)) £60 


IDEA3IN {A3 000 Interface for Internal disc) £75 

ARCHIMEDES INTERNAL CRADLE KIT £1 5 

ARCHIMEDES A300 / A400 SERIES FAN KIT £15 

4-SLOT 4-LAYER BACKPLANE £52 

POWER CABLE FOR SECOND HARD DISC £5 

A5000 SECOND HARD DISC FITTING KIT £15 


IDEA80 

£179 

IDEA240 

£350 

IDEA100 

£215 

IDEA330 

£470 

IDEA120 

£245 

IDEA426 

£499 

IDEA17Q 

£275 

IDEA540 

£750 

IDEA40S 

£140 

IDEA120S 

£299 

IDEA60S 

£200 

IDEA130S 

£399 

IDEA80S 

£245 

IDEA209S 

£449 


ft I4JZ2P IDE Filing System on rom 

Package includes rom, manual and fitting instructions. Com- 
patible with RISC OS 3.0 and 3 . 1. Allows up to four logical 
partitions over two physical drives . Each partition appears 
separately on the icon bar and can have different password 
protection. Makes use of existing Acorn hardware for maxi- 
mum compatibility, but works with a wider range of hard discs. 
Security breaches using ADFS can be prevented. Can be 
fitted easify by a competent user . 

A vailable now: WIZZOS for A5000 introductory price £29 

Available soon : WI2Z04 for A4 introductory price £29 

Quantity discounts available * Dealer enquiries welcome 


me /Ion Cnnocio l/o \ imitarh Plant R/1 R 1 k'inntnn rr\pH \A/pct K"irh\/ WIRRAI MprQPVQiHp 1 4R EFT 




JULY 1993 


Basic Wimp Programming Dabs vo £PQA 
Krisalis 

Battletanl^^^^^ Minerva £9 

BBC Basic Guide Acsm vo£21 

Beginner's Guide to Wimp Programming 


jtOoutoMQ 10 out of iq 

- Early Essentials (-6), English (6-1 6), 

Maths Number (6-16) each £19 

- French, German, Italian, 

Junior Essentials, Maths Algebra, 
Science, Spanish each £POA 

1 St Paint Resource £34 

1 st Wo rd PI us Man ual Acorn vo £ 1 0 

2 067 BC 
. k 2067 BG + Entropy 

ggg^njction Kit [not OS 3.1) 

Domari t £35 

1 3000 Technical Ffef^ence Manual 

Vo £32 

A4 Technical Reference ManuaMeom vo £65 
A5000 Technical Referent 
Manuai 

A540 Technical Manual Acom VO £65 

ABC Version 3 Oak £79 

Acheto n / K in gdom of Hami I Topoiogika £ 1 7 

Access TBA £2 J 

Accounts ac$ £245 

Acorn Advance Acorn £89 

~ Pri mary Lice nee £163 

- Secondary Licence £442 

Adventure Playground, age 5-3 storm £21 
Aggressor 


on the Archimedes 

Sigma V0 £13 

Birthday Present 

Topoiogika 

EPOA 

Black Angel 

Fourth Dim 

£28 

Blitz 

Arxe 

£12 

BfowPipe 

Leading Edge £1 4 

Bobby Blockhead vs The Dark Planet 



Atomic 

£15 

Bookstore 

ESM 


- Primary, KS1,2 

ESM 

£37 

- Secondary, KS3,4 

ESM 

£58 

- Welsh Primary, KS1„2 esm 

£58 

- Welsh Secondary, KS3,4 esm 

£78 

Break 147 & Superpool 

Fourth Dim 

£25 

Britain by Rail 

Fisher- Marriott 

£19 

Budget DTP 

Dabs vo£13 

Bug Hunter / Moon Dash 

Minerva 

£10 

Bug Hunter in Space 

Minerva 

£10 

Business Accounts 

Minerva 

£298 

C..' (new edition) 

Dabs V0£16 

- with disc 


£24 

CableNews 

Lingenuity 

£136 

CADet, KS3.4 

Minerva 

£135 

Cambridge Pascal 

Oak 

£79 

Cartoon Collection 

Micro Studio £16 

Casino 

Mberva 

£11 

Castle of Dreams, age 9+ 


£22 

Cataclysm 

F^Ttbpim 

£18 

Caverns 

Mihenfe^ 

£10 

r«i M*%iT=3 1\ \ 




R/sd » 

afSjl 

Chameleon (6^w^yersion) 

Amation 


^LQhampions CoiTtpllStkjjCE 

Krisalis 1 .} 

£24 

Chad| a G raphs\ da 

mputer Tutorial 

£17 

ChaiWeJi \ 


£25 

Chatter 

Amotion'"' 

£34 

^Gbegue red Flag , 

CIS 

£18 


Designer V3 r&cfcSoft £193 

Designer Intro (not OS 3) TecftSo/t £75 

Designer's Graphics, draw/sprites 

Micro Studio £16 
DeskEdrt2 Rise £27 

Desktop Assemb ler Re lease 2 Acorn £ 1 1 9 

Desktop C Release 4 Acorn £100 

Desktop Database iota £52 

Spop Folio, KS1 -4 esm £60 

ktop Folio Curriculum Packs, KS2+: 

" rtmas, Editors, Maths, 
a, World War II each £22 

) Folio - Welsh, KS1 -4 asw £82 
3 Office v2, KS2-4 Mi'rwrva £75 

j Publish ing on the Archimedes 

Sterna VC £13 

RISC 
ESM 

Rise £9 

Oregan £45 

Look £28 

ics £10 

£30 

Sherston V0 £16 
Oak £35 

EMR £34 

Resource £24 

Resource £29 


Glimpse Orator £10 

Gods Krisalis £19 

Good Impression vtfarcf vc£25 

Granny's Garden Amation £23 

Granny's Garden Resource Pack 4rrtar;Qn£15 
GraphBox Minerva £57 

GraphBox Professional Minerva £104 

Graphics on the ARM Machines Dabs vo£15 
Graph JT Sherston £19 

Greetings Graphics, draw/sprites 

Gribbly’s Day Out 
GridlT 

Grievous Bodify ’ARM 
Guiie 


& 


ba-Pet, age 5-11 
DFS R jader 
Digital Symphony 
Disc Rescue 
DrawBender 
- sitr licence 
(Drawjleip, age 13+ 

Draw Pr|nt 6 Plot 
Dream wpve, age 14+ 
jDroom 
:Dust 

DTP Graphics 1 Mono, spritesjw^Sfo(to£15 


• DTP Graphics 2 Colour 
I DTP Graphics combined 
DTP See|s 
Dungeon 


Micro Studio £17 
Micro Studio £25 
Amation V0 £8 
Fourth Dire £26 


Air Supremacy 


Alpine 

Storm 

Minerva 


Aidebaran 
Alerion 

Aiien Invasion 
All-In Boxing 
Almanac 
AlphaBase 
Alpha-Sound 

ALPS Adventure Language 
Programming System 
Amazing Ollie, age 4+ 

Ancestry, KS3,4 

ANSI C Release 4 User Guide Acom 
Arcade 3 Clares 

ArcComm 2 
ArcDFS Date £22 

ArcFAX David Pilling £19 

Arcendium Dabs £12 

Archimedes Assembly Language Dabs ve£15 

- with disc £22 

Archimedes First Steps Dabs vo£1Q 

Archimedes Game Maker's Manual 

Sigma Vo £15 
Archimedes Operating System Dabs vo£l5 

- with disc 
Architeoh 
Archivist Pro 
Archway 2 
ArcLight 
ArcMonitcr 
Arcol Desktop 
Arcounts Manager 
ARC- PC B 

- Professional 

- Schematics 
ArcSpelF i 
ArcSpelF 2 
Arete rm 7 
ARCticulate 
ARCtist 
ArcTrivia 

Arc venture - 1 ... The Roman 
11 ...The Egyptians, age 
Vikings, age 7-11 - ea 
Armadeus / WC "fares 

Armadeus Sampler Board, ' Ctares 
Artisan 2 / / Clares 

Art Machine Pack I- /’ Topobgika 
Art Machine Pacfc§ 

ArtSchool 




I ard Disc Companfon 
Hearsay II 
HelixBasic 
!Help3, age 13+ 

Hero Quest 
Hilighter, age 8-16 
History Costume, sprites 
Holed Out Compendium 
Home Accounts 
House of Numbers 
Hoverbod (not OS 3) 

1. bix the Viking (not OS 3) 
j*e swi 

- bought with Qddule 
illusionist 

Illustrators’ Graphics t draw/sprites 

Micro Stubii 

Image Animator 
Image OCR 
image Qutliner 
Imagery 

Imagine (Version 
Impact! 

Impact! Dj 


Micro Sludb £16 

Coin-Age 

£19 

Widgit 

£30 

Fourth Dim 

£18 

Dream 

£24 

RISC 

£45 

RISC 

£69 

PDK 

£79 

Sheraton VO £11 

Krisalis 

£24 

Sheraton 

£32 

Micro Studio £16 

Fourth PirT? 

£18 

Minerva 

£34 

Chaiksoft 

£20 

Minerva 

£11 

Minerva 

£11 

Baitdon 

£15 


£5 

Clares 

£69 


Ego: Region 4 
Einstein 
Elite 

EluciData (OCR) 

- bought with I rFam Scanner : 



SPECIAL SUMMER OFFERS L 

Valid while stocks last or until further notice 


- Extra Circuits N, cis £16 

Chess 3D Micro Power £21 

Child ren’^Grephfcs Micro studio £16 

Chocks Away Compendium Fourth Dim £27 

r*< iir.Tvr.T-T i PoufJh Dim ,^s+l 


Clip Art 

- Vol 1 (General), j 

- Vol 2 (Generaljk 
[Sport) / Vol i 

Clip Art Set 1. djaf 
Clip Art Set 2,/ 

CNC Designer V3 fori 
CNC Designer V3 for L 


Krisalis m 

Graphics Factory 


£28 

£28 


/ £493 


filler 



Pno) 


Artworks 


- netwc^ciioence 

- site licence 
Astro 
Atelier, KS2-4 
AUN/Level 4 Fileserver 
Avon & Murdac 


a 


badger Trails, age 9-11 
Bambuzle 
BASIC V 


£545 

Topoiogika £35 
Minerva £6 9 
Acom £395 
Topobgika £16 

Sherston £37 
Arxe £1 2 

tats VC £10 


CNC Designer V3 f 
Coffee, age 9+ 

Colour Screen 

- Arc/Mac C 

ColourSep / / ics 

- site lichee 
ColourSep' Starter F 

- DeskJet 500 (fy 
-...site licence 

- jBJ-10 wittvCart ridges 
ice 

B J witfcbut Cartridges 
- site’licence £70 

Compassion cc £34 

Confute r Basics Computer Tutorial £17 

Cphcept Designer Longman £23 

fonnections, age 5-8 Sberston £27 

Control Logo tarKjmar) £25 

Converta-Key Triple r £9 

Cops Alpine £15 

Countdown to Doom / Return to Doom / 

Philosopher’s Quest Topoiogika £25 

Crafts hop 1 Amation £19 

Craftshop 2 Amation £1 9 

Creator Alpine £31 

Crisis cis £15 

CrOSS-32 Meta -Assemb ler Baitdon £125 

- manual for evaluation s^/econ vq £1 5 

Crystal Rain Forest, age 8-1 1 Sheraton £35 
Curves Topokagika £37 

Fourth Dim 
Ajata Tl9 

•■'arryl the Dragon, KS 1,2 Amation £19 

- Activity Sheets £10 

DataGraph Topdogika £29 


Enter the Realm 
Equasor 

Ethnic Borders i 

E-Type CompendiuJ\ 

Euclid — 

Eureka ■ 

Excel I'onD rill 
Express 

Eye for Spelling, K^<2 

/ r amily Favourites 
Farmer Giles 
Farmer Giles II 
Fervour 
Film-Maker 
Find It! 

Fireball II Xtra 
Frrst\lmpressiCi i 
First Logo 

First Words anti Pictures 
pare 

Flex if iie, KS3>< 

/Flight Path, age 9+ 

Flight Si^ Toqjkrt 
Fontasy 

- site tree nee 

Fontasy / QrawBender/ Placard 

- site licence 

Font DirectoW Look 

FontFX ^ Oho Store 

- site licence 

Font Pack - Newhall, Starter, Symbol 

- each pack Acorn 

Font Pack 1 - Paladin, Swiss B. 

Symbol B, Vogue Rise 

Font Pack - Avant Garde, Bookman 
Pembroke - each pack cc 
Food for Thought, age 7-16 
Freddy's Folly [not OS 3) 

Freddy Teddy 

- Balloons & The Zoo 

- The Playground 

- The Puddle &. The Wardrobe 

Topoiogika 

Freddy Teddy’s Adventure Topoiogika 

Fun School 2 Bumpmss 

- age -6, age 6-8, age 8+ each 

Fun School 3 Bumpress 

- age -5, age 5-7, age 8+ each 

Fun School 4 Suropress 

- age -5, age 5-7, age 7-1 1 each 


- site lice. 

- extr# hardware key for sites only 
manual for sites only 

Impassion Dabs 

- with disc 

Impression Borders CC 

Impression Business Supplement 
Impression Junior CC 

- site licence 

- extra manual for sites only 
Insight 

Instigator date 


1650 
£545 
£15 
vo £8 
Vo £14 
£17 
£19 
cc £39 
£65 
£435 
V0 £7 
£68 
£39 


Inlerdictor 2 

Investigator 2 (not OS 3) 

'tmooLord 

isBof Wight 
Ixion 

ames Pond 
Jet Fighter 
Jiglet 
Jigsaw 

Junior Database 
Junior Pinpoint 

/larma 
Keyboard Player 
Keylink Prolog 
KiddiCad 
Kid Pix, KS1,2 
Knowledge Organiser 2 
Krisalis Col lection 


Clares £26 

Leading Bdge £2 1 
UBISoft £14 

Computer Tutorial £20 
Software 42 £21 


Krisalis 

Minerva 

4mation 

Amation 

iota 

Longman 


£19 

£10 

£19 

£19 

£45 

£23 


Periscope £20 

Chaiksoft £17 

Keylink £69 

Oak £59 

E$M £35 


Clares 

KhsaliS 


£79 

£21 


/landmarks - Aztecs, Civil War, 

Columbus, Egypt, Elizabeth I, Rain 
Forest, Second World War / Victorians 
V- each Longman £18 

Laittpays of Doom f Hezarin Topoiogika £17 


Ga 


Data power 


tola 


Data Vision Silicon 

Data Word Triple Ft £15 

DBEdit Amation £28 

Decorated Alphabet, sprites Micro Studio £17 

Demon’s Lair Fourth Dim £20 


alactic Dan 
Gate Array Design System 
Genesis II 
Genesis Plus 
Genesis Script Language 
Gen Index 
GerberPlot 
Giant Killer, age 10+ 

Giant Killer Support Disc 



Last'll rtf 3 

Superior 

£19 

Lemmings 

Krisalis 

£19 

Letters and Pictures 

Chaiksoft 

£20 



Lexicon ^French, German -eachSfa-fl'fon £48 
Lexicl^^-'Rjssiar stainon £56 

Computer Tutorial £ 1 7 
French, German, Spanish 

Minerva £37 


Limpet: 

Linkwon 

-each 


Little Red Rfdipg Rood, age 5-8 Selective £14 


Logo 

Logo Plotter 
Lotus Turbo Cball§ 


tongunftrf £55 
Longman £20 
Krisalis 


Fourth Dim 
Silicon 
Oak 
Oak 


Oak 

Silicon 

Topwiogika 

Topobgika 


£19 
£114 
£99 
£25 
vo £15 
£39 
£63 
£29 
£24 


i addingly Hall Minerva £8 

Mad Professor Mariadi \ \Krisafis £14 

Magpie T,Vr?gma,n £40 

Mah-Jong European - The GanQe OS £19 

Mah-Jong Patience £19 

Manchester United Europe £19 

Maps and Landscapes 1 9 

Maps and Landscapes 2 Chatksoti^ £19 

Mark Master Chaiksoft ^^67 

Master Break Superior \14 

Masterfile (Version 3) Rise 

Maths Sieve Computer Tutorial £1 6 

Mazes, drawf lies Micro Studio £16 

Memory Magic cis £12 

Mental Maths OS £16 

MicroDrive 2 cis £25 

MicroDrive Designer CIS £25 

Micro Music Fisher-Marriott £1 9 

Micros pet 1 3.XX David Pining £5 








MicroStudio, age 7+ 

EMR 

£67 

Micro Trader Accounts 

PRES 

£270 

MiG-29 Fulcrum 

Domark 

£24 

Military History, sprites 

Micro Studio £16 

Minotaur 

Minerva 

£8 

Missile Control 

Minerva 

£8 

Mogul 

Ace 

£21 

Money Matters 

Triple R 

£15 

Movaword 

Chaiksott 

£17 

MultiFS 

Arxe 

£27 

Multistore, KS3.4 

Minerva 

£125 

Myth of Moby Dick 

Toppologika 

i £27 


^ifature Graphics, draw/sprites 

Micro Studio £16 

Naughty Stories (set of 6) Sherston £48 

Navigator Topologika £39 

Nebulus Krisalis £19 

Newton Longman £20 

Night Sky Clares £67 

Noddy's Playtime Jumping Bean £21 

Noot Amation £41 

Noot Art Disc Amation £10 

Notate Longman £42 

Note Invaders Chaiksott £20 

Number 62 Honeypot Lane Resource £29 

Numbers and Pictures Chaiksott £20 

Numberscope Fisher-Mamott £19 

Number Zoo, age 3-6 Selective £14 

Numerator Longman £39 

Numerator Chaos Longman £18 

|^jak Logic Oak £79 

Oak PCB Oak £79 

Oh No! More Lemmings 

(requires Lemmings) Knsaiis £15 




age 4+ 

Storm 



Krisalis 

Orion 

Minerva 

Orrery 

Spacetech 

Ovation 

RISC 

Overload 

Clares 

I* adlock 

ICS 


- site licence 


£84 

£13 


£10 

£30 


Pandora’s Box 


Pappus 

Paradroid 2000 
PC Emulator 1 .8 
PDT 

Pendown 


Fourth Dim 
Computer Tutorial 

Coin-Age £22 

Acorn £93 

Oak £149 

Longman £46 


Pendown Etoiles Longman £49 

Pendown Outline Fonts Longman £19 

Pendown Plus Longman £68 

Personal Accounts Apncote £29 

Perspectives TechSott £44 

Pesky Muskrats Coin- Age £19 

Phonic Games Fisher-Mamott £28 

Picture Book Tnpfe R £15 

Picture It! Appian £29 

-Topic discs each £9 

PinPoint Longman £65 

- site licence £390 

PipeDream 3 Cotton £72 

PipeDream4 Cotton £119 

PipeDriver Dot 1 ICS £10 

Pipe Mania Empire £18 

Pirate, age 8-14 Chaiksott £19 

Placard tcs £10 

- site licence £30 

Plague Planet Alpine £13 

PlayBack RISC £19 

Play It Again Sam 1 Superior £20 

Plot Clares £POA 

Podd, KS1,2 ESM £27 

Podd - Welsh, KS1 .2 esm £38 

Polyominoes Topologika £29 

Populous Knsaiis £22 

Poster Amation £75 

PowerROUTER Silicon £159 

Prehistoric Animals, sprites Micro Studio £16 

Premier Circle £71 

- DataBase Circle £25 

- WordProc Circle £25 

Presentation Task Force £POA 

Presenter GTi Lmgenuity £66 

PrimeArt. KS1-4 Minerva £69 

PrimeMover, KS2-4 Minerva £75 

PrimeSolver, KS1-4 Minerva £POA 

PrimeWord, KS2-4 Minerva £55 

Printer Drivers, RISC OS: 

Canon BubbleJet, Canon LBP, 

Canon PJ1080, ColourCel. Epson JX, 

Epson ESC-P2, HP. Integrex 132 

-each Ace £19 

Deskjet 500C, Epson / Star colour 

-each Rise £15 

ProDrivers: Canon LBP8, Epson ESC-P2. 

HP Colourjet - each Ace £37 

TurboDrivers: Canon, HP - each cc £49 
ProArtisan Clares £71 

ProArtisan 2 Clares £POA 

ProCAD, KS4 Minerva £394 


Programming in ANSI Standard C 

on the Archimedes Sigma vo£15 

Prophet (requires 2 Mb) Apricote £132 

Prophet Entry Level Apncote £10 

Protext Amor £117 

Provocator Computer Tutorial £15 

Puncman 1 and 2 Chaiksott £16 

Puncman 3 and 4 Chaiksott £16 

Puncman 5 to 7 Chaiksott £1 8 

Punctuate Xavier £31 

Punctuate! Topologika £25 

^/uest for Gold Krisahs £19 

OuicKey ICS £10 

- site licence £30 

Fourth Dim ^ J jjjj 
Fourth Dim 
Fourth Dim 
Sherston 
fAinerva 
Atomwide 
Clares 
Superior 
Colton 
Longman 
Longman 
Longman 
Longman 
Chaiksott 
Clares 



Recall, age 8- 
Redshift 
RemoteFS 
Render Bender 2 
Repton 3 
Resultz 
Revelation 1 
Revelation 2 
Revelation 2 CD Rom 
Revelation ImagePro 
Reversals 
Rhapsody 2 
Rhapsody 3 
Rhythm-Bed 
RhythmBox II, age 8+ 

RiscBASIC Compiler 
RiscForth Compiler 
Rise OS 3 Programmer's 
Reference Manual 
Rise OS Companion Vol 1 
Rise OS Extras 1992 
Rise OS Style Guide 
RoboLogo 
Round the World Yacht Race, age 9+ 

Storm 


Clares 

EMR 

Silicon 

Silicon 

Acorn 

Oak 

Acorn 

Acorn 

Silicon 


£10 

£48 

£78 

£20 

£POA 

£39 

£75 

£98 

£127 

£17 

£45 

£79 

£39 

£34 

£79 

£79 

V0 £99 
V0 £49 
£9 
vo £12 
£39 

£27 


Saloon Cars Deluxe Fourth Dim £25 

- Deluxe Extra Courses Fourth Dim £16 


S-Base Developer 


Longman 

S-Base Developer Plus Longman £275 
S-Base Network Longman £275 


SET: h mrai 

Longman 

S^sma™ 1 

Clares 5l95 


Clares £POA 

Micro Studio £25 
Clares £44 


Schema 2 
Science, drawfiles 
Score Draw 
Scorewriter PMS Desktop, age 12+ 

EMR £147 

ScreenPlay Widgit £35 

ScreenTurtle Topologika £44 

Search and Rescue, age 9+ Storm £27 

Seashore Guide, drawfiles Micro studio £16 


Seelinks - Ourselves, KS1 .2 esm 
Seelinks - Pond Watch, KS2 esm 


Seelinks - Tourism, KS3 esm 

Seelinks - Transport, KS2 esm 

Serenade Clares 

Settlement, KS3 ESM 

ShapeFX Data Store 

ShareHolder smeon 

ShareHolder Professional smeon 

ShowPage CC 

Shylock Gnomes, age 10-15 Selective 

Sim City Knsaiis 

SkyHunter Longman 

SmArt Amation 

smArt Aliens, Animals, Dinosaurs. Egypt, 
Europe*, Faces*. Fantasy. Fashion, 
Fiddles & Drums, Heraldry, Homes*, 
Leisure*. Look Smart, Smartoons. 

Trees and Gardens 
’Please specify English, French. German, 


£27 

£35 

£35 

£35 

£106 

£31 

£10 

£106 

£234 

£145 

£16 

£24 

£22 

£50 


Spanish or Welsh - each Amation 
smArtFiler 4mation 

smArt Modern Languages 4mat>on 
Smudge the Spaniel, age 4-8 Storm 
Snippet (new version) 

Soapbox 
SolidCAD 
SolidsRender 
SolidTools 
SongBook, age 3-10 
Sound Engineer, age 12+ 

Sound FX Maker 
Sounds & Rhymes 
Spark 
SparkFS 
Sparkle 
Special 

- site licence 


Speech! 


Spelling week-by-week 
Spex 

Spheres of Chaos 
Splash, age 7-11 


Amation 
Xavier 
Silicon 
Silicon 
Silicon 
EMR 
EMR 
CIS 
Xavier 
David Pitting 
David Pitting £20 

Mortey £59 

ICS £10 

£30 

Superior 
Chaiksott 
ExpLAN £98 

Matt Black £19 

Sherston £19 


£15 

£32 

£19 

£20 

£32 

£34 

£79 

£79 

£234 

£24 

£59 

£31 

£29 

£5 


Splice 

Ace 

£29 

Split an Image, age 7-16 

Sherston 

£16 

Spoken Word 

Wyddfa 

£16 

Spooler Computer Tutorial £9 

Sporting Triangles 

CDS 

£19 

SportsDay 

Selective 

£22 

SportsPeople 

Selective 

£22 

Sprite Ed Computer Tutorial 

£17 

SpySnatcher 

Topologika 

£12 

Square Route 

Computer Eyes 

£16 

Starspell Plus 

Fisher-Mamott 

£19 

StartWrite 

Icon 

£55 

StockPack 

Topologika 

£37 

StoryBook, age 3-10 

EMR 

£59 

StrongED 

Stallion 

£22 

Studio24Plus Version 2, age 1 1 + emr 

£149 

Studio24Plus Version 3, age 12+ emr 

£210 

SUMthing 

Resource 

£19 

SuperDump 

Silicon 

£20 

Superior Golf 

Superior 

£14 

SuperPlot 

Silicon 

£20 

Supersounds 

CIS 

£15 

Supersounds 2 

CIS 

£15 

Swiv 

Knsaiis 

£19 

1 ABS 

ExpLAN 

£95 

Talisman 

Minerva 

£8 

Talking Pendown 

Longman 

£58 

Talking Pictures 

Wyddfa 

£16 

Target Maths 

Triple R 

£15 

Technodream (Nevryon 2) Superior 

£20 

Tech Writer 

Icon 

£159 

Thinklink 

Xavier 

£29 

ThinkSheet 

Fishor-Marriott 

£38 

Thundermonk 

Minerva 

£11 

Tiles 

Brain Games 

£16 

Timeshare 

Fisher-Mamott 

£19 

Timetabler 

Minerva 

£549 

Time Traveller, KS2 

ESM 

£37 

- Britain Since the 1930s, KS2 

£30 

- Expansion, Trade and Industry, KS3 



£36 

- Making of the United Kingdom.KS3 £39 

- Medieval Realms, KS3 

£36 

- The Victorians, KS2 


£30 

Tiny Logo/Draw 

Topologika 

£34 

TinyPuzzle 

Topologika 

£24 

Titter 

Clares 

£119 

Toolkit Plus 

Clares 

£36 

Tools Graphics, drawfiles 

Micro Studio £23 

Topographer 

Clares 

£63 

touch Type k 

lota J* 


Tower of Babel 

Cygnus 

07 

Trace 

David Pilling 

£5 

Tracer 

Midnight 

£46 

Tracker 

Leading Edge £37 

Transport, drawfiles 

MicroStudio £25 

Turbo Type 

CIS 

£20 

Tween 

Ace 

£30 

Twin 

Acorn 

£24 

Twin World 

UBISoft 

£14 

TWO (Task and Window Organiser) ics £10 

- site licence 


£30 

TypeStudio 

RISC 

£39 

futility Disc 1 

Data Store 

£8 

Utility Disc 2 

Data Store 

£13 

Utility Disc 3 

Data Store 

£7 

Utility Collection 

Data Storo 

£21 

J/ector 

Amation 

£75 

View»Mac 3 

Human 

£65 

- Arc/Mac Cable 

Human 

£24 

Viewpoints, age 7-11 

Sherston 

£37 

Virtual Golf 

Fourth Dim 

£25 

Visual Backup 

Dabhand 

£42 

Vox Box 

Clares 

£46 

VV aterloo (not OS 3.1) 

Turcan 

£19 

Whale Facts 

Topologika 

£34 

WindowEd 

Armen 

£27 

Word Bank 

Topologika 

£25 

Words and Pictures 

Chalksoft 

£18 

WordWorks 

CC 

£38 

Wordz 

Colton 

£89 

World Geography Maps, draw Micro Studio £23 

WorldMaker, KS3.4 

ESM 

£57 

World Map Study, KS3.4 

ESM 

£67 

Worldscape 

Leading Edge 

£17 

World Wildlife, sprites 

Micro Studio 

£16 

Worra Battle 

Oak 

£15 

WorraCAD 

Oak 

£79 


1 acht2 
Yacht 7 

Inarch 

Zelanites (not OS 3) 
Zool 


For ordering details please turn 

fip-C l,u ^ gc A/ 



SCANNERS, 
DIGITISERS . 


ArcScanner including Epson GT-4000 

Clares £1660 

Colour Converter Uncus £145 

FaxScan Spacetech £94 

GreyHawk Wild Vrskon £98 

Handipad TechSott £173 

Hawk V9 Mkll Wild Vision 

-standard £199 

- hardware dithered £259 

HiVision Digitiser Colour hccs 

- A3000 External £137 

- A3000 Series / A4000 Internal £124 

- A5000 / 300 / 400 £124 

iMage (Sharp JX- 100) irfam 

- for A5000 £490 

- for other computers £589 

Image Scanner iota £383 

- Colour Upgrade Kit iota £239 

- Fast Parallel Card iota £98 

i-Scan 200 Mam £539 

I-Scan 400 Mam £589 

Pineapple Colour Video Digitiser 

Pineapple £195 

- A 3000 boxed Pineapple £230 

Prolmage (Epson GT6000) Mam 

- for A5000 £989 

- for other computers £1089 

Scan-Light A4 cc £277 

- with Sheet Feeder cc £360 

Scan-Light 256 CC £190 

- A3000 internal cc £190 

Scan-Light Professional cc £565 

- as above + SCSI interface cc £699 

Snapshot Colour Video Digitiser 

Lingenuity £195 

- A3000 version Lmgenuity £275 

Spectra RISC 

- Archimedes / A5000 £545 

- A3000 Senes / A4000 Internal £545 

- A 3000 External £555 

Vision Digitiser hccs 

- A5000 / 300 / 400 Mono £48 

- A 5000 / 300 / 400 Colour £76 

- A3000 External Mono £60 

- A3000 External Colour £89 

- A3000 Series /A4000 Internal Mono£48 

- A3000 Series / A4000 Internal Colour 

£76 

MEMORY . . . 

Fitting extra unless otherwise stated 
f Fitting farily easy t Fitting needs expertise 
A3000 2 Mb Upgradable t Atomwide/iFEL £43 
A3000 4 Mb t Atomwide/iFEL £110 


A3010 1-2 Mb 


A3020 / A4000 2-4 Mb t IFEL £55 

A3 10 2 Mb Upgradable soldered t ifel £88 

- as above + MEMCIa £113 

- as above + MEMC1 a + fitting £143 
A310 4 Mb soldered + MEMCIa Xifel £152 

- as above + fitting £182 

A5000 2-4 Mb Non-upgradablet4fam»wtfe £85 
A5000 2-4 Mb Upgradable t Atomwide £99 
A5000 2-8 Mb including fitting Atomwide £500 
A5000 4-8 Mb including fitting Atomwide £391 
A540 4 Mb t Acorn £238 


PRINTERS . . . 


Computer Tutorial £49 
Computer Tutorial £94 

Superior £14 
Micro Power £15 
Gremilin £20 




SI 


PC PRODUCTS . . . 

AnDi Oddule Baildon £39 

l 2 C Adaptor (needed unless you 

already have an l 2 C socket) Baildon £10 
PC SWI (enhanced IIC_Control) Baildon £15 
- bought with Oddule £5 


to page 3 1 


ArcLaser 300-6 
ArcServer 300-8 
Bubble Jet BJ-IOsx 
Bubble Jet BJ-IOsx 

Bubble Jet BJ-200 
Bubble Jet BJ-230 
Bubble Jet BJ-300 
Bubble Jet BJ-330 
Bubble Jet BJC-800 

DeskJet 510 
DeskJet 50OC 


Caihgraph £895 
Caliigraph £985 
Canon £187 
+ TurboDriver 

Canon/CC £219 
Canon £282 
Canon £315 
Canon £325 
Canon £380 
+ TurboDriver 

Canonic £ 1374 
Hewlett-Packard £275 
Hewlett-Packard £375 















N E W S 


ACORN DEMOS MULTIWORKS 

ACORN has demonstrated its 
A50Q0-based Multi Works 

multimedia workstation in 
public for the first time. 

The demonstration showed 
how a CD -Rom can be created 
on a Unix workstation, using a 
writable CD (Worm) drive. 

The CD, which can contain 
JPEG motion video clips, is 
then completely compatible 
with PCs and the Acorn Multi- 
Works workstation, 

A new JPEG real-time 
decompression board, designed 
for use with Replay and 
developed by Irlam Instru- 
ments, was used in the Acorn. 

MultiWorks is an EC-funded 
project to exploit multimedia 
across a number of platforms. 

There are no immediate plans 
for Acorn to market a Multi- 
Works version of the A 5 000. 



The Acorn MultiWorks station, based on the A5000 


BEEBUG 

BUNDLE 

NEW on the Beebug price list 
at £1829 + VAT is an enhanced 
Acorn A4 Portable with a 
2 1 0Mb hard drive. This is to 
be a replacement for the 
standard 60Mb device, 

Beebug has also relaunched 
its A3010 Home Professional 
System. This proved very 
popular when launched at the 
end of last year. 

Beebug ’s sister company. 
Rise Developments, has 
announced a new range of IDE 
hard drives up to 450Mb in 
capacity, with 210Mb internal 
drive options for A3000/ 
A4000 users. 

For further information con- 
tact Rise Developments/ 
Beebug on (0727) 840303. 


NEXUS ACORN SKIPS GENERATION TO 700 



The A 540 is currently the top of the range Acorn machine, but not for long 


JUNIOR 

A cut-down version of the 
Nexus networking system has 
been announced by SJ 
Research. 

Nexus Junior provides a 
simple, server-based system 
which enables software for 
everyone on the network to be 
stored and accessible on one 
machine’s hard disc. 

Station access is limited to 
read-only but users can still 
save files locally to floppy disc 
as required. 

All stations will also be able 
to share the printer attached to 
the server machine. SJ 
Research has designed the 
system to simplify the manage- 
ment of software in a class- 
room environment. 

Any Archimedes with a 
minimum of 2Mb Ram can act 
as a server and Nexus Junior is 
compatible with either Rise OS 
2 or 3. 

An introductory price of 
£399 for a four-station pack is 
being offered by SJ and for an 
extra £200 the company will 
send an engineer to install the 
system for you. 

SJ Research can be con- 
tacted on (0223) 416715. 


ACORN will base its next 
generation of machines on the 
Arm 700 chip, skipping the 
Arm 6 generation, according to 
Arm Ltd's managing director, 
Robin Sax by. Performance of 
the Arm? 00 is expected to be 
double the Arm6 family, with 
no 4Mb memory restrictions as 
i with the Arm2 and Arm3, 

The improved performance 
is down to a larger on-chip 
instruction cache than the 
Arm60O, improved architec- 
ture optimisations and much 
more sophisticated memory 
management system. ArmTOOs 
will be produced on 0.8 micron 
silicon which means they will 
not be larger than an Arm 600 
despite having more tran- 
sistors, The Arm chip's current 
frugality will be maintained. 

Also expected to be featured 
by Acorn are Arm Ltd’s new 
Vidc20 chip, which will pro- 
vide 24-bit graphics, and the 
FPA10 floating point accelera- 
tor, The Arm700, scheduled to 
| appear before the end of the 
year, is a logical development 
of the Arm60O, itself a 
development of the Arm3 cur- 
rently used by Acorn. 

• Despite hints, a firm 
release date for the long-awa- 
ited FPA10 has not been 


announced. However, a techni- 
cal paper on the chip has been 
released by Arm Ltd, The 
134,000 transistor chip, Arm’s 
most complex IC to date, is 
designed to work at around 
4MFlops. A subset of Arm’s 
floating point instruction set is 
handled on-chip, with less-fre- 
quently used instructions 
remaining as pan of a software 
emulation. The IEEE 754 
standard is supported. 


Arm Ltd says there is a per- 
formance comparison between 
the FPA10 and the rival MIPS 
R3010 floating point co-pro- 
cessor, though the latter will 
consume several times more 
power. 

If you use Cad or ray-trac- 
ing the FPA10 appears to 
promise much. Arm Ltd is on 
(0223) 813000. 

Robin Saxby is this month 's 
Moxon Interview on page 120. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 7 





DeskJet 55QC Hewlett-Packard £475 

Laser Direct KiRes4 cc £899 

- 250-sheet Paper Cassette £99 

Laser Direct KiResS cc £1276 

Laser Direct Hi Res Board CC £325 

Refill toner cartridge for Canon EPS £50 
New toner cartridge for Canon LBP-4 £59 

computers , . . 


A3010 1MB FD Family Solution Acorn £420 
A3GT0 2MB FD Learning Curve with Monitor 



Acorn 

£675 

- as above + JP15G Printer 

£889 

A3G20 2MB FD 

Acorn 

£749 

A302Q 2MB HD60 

Acorn 

£899 

A4 2MBFD 

Adorn 

£1395 

A4 4MBHD60 

Acorn 

£1695 

A4 4MBHD80 

Acorn 

£1699 

A4 4MBHD120 

Acorn 

£1799 

A4 Extra Battery Pack 

Acorn 

£50 

A4 Shouider Bag 

Acorn 

£35 

A4QOO 2MB HD80 

Acorn 

£945 

- as above + Home Office 

£995 

A5000 2MB HD80 Multiscan 

£1395 

- as above + Learning Curve 

£1455 

Pocket Book 

Acorn 

£212 


MISCELLANEOUS. . . 


386 PC Expansion Card 25 MHz AtephOne 

- 1 Mb £374 

- 4 Mb £468 


486 PC Expansion Card 

One 


- 1 Mb 


£463 

- 4 Mb 


£557 

4-slot 4-layer Backplane 

IFEL 

£52 

9060S Monitor 

E'zo 

£450 

A300/400 Fan kit 

ICS 

£15 

A3000 Expansion Box 

Wild Vision 

£135 

A310 RISC OS Carrier Board t ifel 

£18 

A5GGQ Fitting Kit for second hard disc 



ICS 

£15 

Arokey Function KeySfrip Holder res 

vo £3 

- pack of 4 

V0 £10 

ArcNET 

4CS 

£69 

ARM3 t AiephQn&lEEL 

£165 

CoiourBurst 

State 

£322 

GdourCard 

CC 

£225 

- A 3000 External 

cc 

£225 

Dongle Dangle with screw fittings ics 

£6 

Fan fillers (pack of 1 0) (nol A500D) tcs £6 

FaxPack 

cc 

£289 

Floppy Discs, 10 x 3^ M High Density 

£10 

G16 

State 

£258 

GB Plus 

State 

£238 

G8 Plus Video Switch 

State 

£23 

HiPoint Mouse for A4 

Genius 

£49 

Microlin fx Pocket Fax Modem Pace 

£179 

Micro Mouse 

Clares 

£26 

Monitor Stand for A3600 

ICS 

£21 

Monoj'SCSI 

Atomwide 

£48 

Podule Case for A3000 

HCCS 

£16 

Printer/SCSI 

Atomwide 

£74 

Print Port Sound Sampler 

Leading Edge £42 

Publishing Pack 

cc 

£475 

RISC OS 3 Upgrade 

Acorn 

£42 

- Bulk package 

Acorn 

£335 

- A5000 

Acom 

£19 

Seal ’n Type spill-proof Keyboard Covers 

- Archimedes / A5QGQ 

Kador 

£14 

- A3000 

Kador 

£14 

TouchWindow 

Undis 

£234 


Whisper Fan Quietener 

(for A300/A400 series only) tcs £15 
Wizzo iDE Filing System on rom tcs 



for A4 
for A5000 




"You wonder how you ever managed without QuicKey. 

NOW ONLY £10 

"Congratulations on ColourSepf The results , 
compared with the drivers currently available, 
are bordering on the fantastic F 

NOW ONLY £15 


TWO is the best thing 
I/ve ever bought ” 

W ONLY £10 


Padlock is 
our top seller \ 
for simple disc security. 


As well as letting 
you type all those 
extra characters, 
Special 
is the easiest way 
to examine new fonts. 

I "DrawBender is quite stunning. " 

NOW ONLY £10 

jFontasy offers a wider range of effects 
tharj FontFX It ts a package for the perfectionist 
wh/ether professional or enthusiast. " 

INLY £15 


HOW TO ORDER 


VAT: Zero-raled items are marked VO. UK customers please add 17,5% to atl other prices, EC customers outside Ihe UK (including 
BFPO) please do the same unless you are VAT registered, in which case quote your international VAT number Ours is 
GB 595 7258 84. 

CARRIAGE IS FREE WITHIN MAINLAND UK IF YOU PA Y ON ORDERING. 

Overseas carriage: If you are paying by credit card we wilt add airmail and insurance at cost. Otherwise please add £6 (Europe) or 
at least £12 (elsewhere) for each software item and send a pounds sterling bank draft payable at a London clearing bank, or 
Eurocheques for not more than £100 each. 

Credit cards are welcome. We do not charge your account until your order is fulfilled. Your name and address must be as known to 
the credit card company. If you are leaving an order on our answering machine please include your telephone number, the expiry 
date of your card, and your calculation of the total payment due. We will make no charge for credit card commission unless we have 
informed you first. 

Official orders are welcome from UK government and educational institutions Payment is due in 14 days. Invoices are subject to 
carriage and late payment charges. 

Site licences are available for most products. Please check our prices. 

All products, prices and specifications are offered in good faith and are subject to change without notice. We process all orders 
immediately, but suppliers do sometimes keep us waiting. Goods are guaranteed but we do not supply them on approval. Returns 
and cancellations can only be accepted by prior agreement and there may be a charge to cover the costs involved. 



AUTHORISED ACORN DEALER 


ICS (Ian Copestake Limited) 

Dept B45, 1 Kington road, West Kirby, WIRRAL, Merseyside, L48 5ET 

Tel: 051-625 1006 Fax:051-625 1007 


ii ssjeis 


LICENSED CREDIT BROKER 







ISI E W S 


STATE MACHINE SENDS CARDS 



STATE Machine is celebrating 
its first birthday with the 
release of two new video cards 
based on the original G8 
graphics accelerator range . 

The G16 graphics accelera- 
tor has all features of the G8 
Plus, with 16 bits per pixel 
A rt Wo rks - co m pat ible modes , 
Replay- compatible modes 
offering up to 32,768 colours 
at 25 frames per second, and 
655 35 -colour modes for your 
own applications. 

ColourBurst has the features 
of the G16 but a megabyte of 
memory instead of 5 12K, State 
Machine uses memory-map- 
ping techniques to overcome 
the Arc video chip memory 
addressing limit of 512K. 

So far, you can preview 
static desktop 256-colour 
screens in 1152 x 848 pixels 
and ArtWorks drawings in 
32,768 colours at 800 x 600 
pixels. Work is underway to 
enable Rise OS to operate in 
these new large screen modes. 

You can connect Colour- 
Burst output direct to CCIR 
Pal devices like video 
recorders and TVs, and $- 
Video is supported too. 

An optional extra is gen- 
locking to mix ColourBurst 
output with live video. State 
Machine has implemented the 
latest in reprogrammable gate 
arrays from Lattice. Unlike 


State Machine's birthday card 

similar Xilinx chips used by 
Computer Concepts and Wild 
Vision, the Lattice chip is 
based on flash technology 
which means it is non-volatile. 

Expansion space is provided 
on the card for future add-ins 
like a simple sync gen -lock 
facility, an RGB bandwidth 
limiter, a composite Pal and 5- 


Video encoder, and an internal 
RGB video switch for the 
A540 and A50OO, 

The GI6 costs £279 + VAT 
and ColourBurst £399 + VAT. 

State Machine can be con- 
tacted at: Unit 4, Stopsley 
Business Centre, Sl T homas's 
Road, Stopsley, LU2 7UX. 
Tel; (0582)485151. 


ACORN 
i WORLD ’93 

A picture is emerging of w r hat 
we can expect from the Acorn 
World '93 show in October. 

The show theme will be 
'Vision for the Future' and to 
reflect this there will be dedi- 
cated feature areas for publish- 
ing, professional services and 
home business, A special edu- 
cation centre will show initia- 
tives for the National 
Curriculum and special needs. 

Another highlight of the 
show will be Acorn's restated 
move to attract more home 
users, A games arcade section 
will be complemented by a 
laser light show, while on a 
more serious note, seminars 
will cover issues from business 
and technical to leisure topics. 

Show director, Kevin Cole- 
m an , c ommen led: £ Acorn 

World will be the premier 
Acorn exhibition of 1993, pre- 
senting a totally new concept 
in computer shows. We believe 
it will demonstrate what can be 
achieved by a major manufac- 
turer working closely with its 
partners and will set new 
standards for innovation.’ 

Acorn World is at Wembley 
Exhibition Centre between 
October 29-31 and is organised 
by Acorn Computers and spon- 
sored by Acorn User . 


SILICON VISION UP TO SOME MONEY BUSINESS 



ProSHEET: work out your expenditure for less expenditure 


Si LI COM Vision has released 
two interesting new business 
applications; ProSHEET and 
Payroll Manager , 

ProSHEET is notable 
because at £39.95 4- VAT it 
subs ta n t i al ly u n de rc u ts the 
Rise OS spreadsheet competi- 
tion. Features of the package 
include hot-linked graph 
plotting with 3D options, 
macros, icon -driven toolbox 
menus, spreadsheet contents 
reporting, a calculator pad for 
numeric entry, variable column 
widths and the ability to run 
comfortably on a I Mb 
machine. 

Silicon Vision says that it 
paid particular attention to the 
user interface with ease of use 
being the prime consideration. 
A novel ProSHEET feature is 
the user-definable menu cell 


which users can use to create 
custom menus and thereby 
control various spreadsheet 
operations. 

Payroll Manager has been 
in trial use for two years 
already and, according to Sili- 
con Vision, was also designed 
with ease of use in mind. 

The package is fully Rise 
OS -compliant and can manage 
weekly or monthly salaries, 
holiday pay, total employer 
expenses, wage slip printing, 
cash breakdowns, and tax year 
issues like P14/P60 informa- 
tion. Record locking is fea- 
tured for security reasons, to 
prevent unauthorised users 
dipping into confidential infor- 
mation on the system. 

Other facilities of the pack- 
age include employee record 
searching and implementation 


of all the Budget tax changes 
for the tax year 1 983/84. 

Future updates on any 
changes can be guaranteed via 
a 25 per cent annual registra- 


tion fee. Payroll Manager is 
priced £99.95 + VAT, 

For more information Sili- 
con Vision can be contacted on 
08] -422 3556. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 9 



IS! E W S 


EUREKA! LONGMAN UPGRADES 



Printing and displaying formulae in Eureka 


LONGMAN Logotron has 
announced an improved ver- 
sion of the Eureka spreadsheet 
package. 

Over 100 enhancements are 
listed, including a series of 
spreadsheet publishing impro- 
vements, a window zooming 
option, formula printing, 
improved worksheet linking, 
partial sheet exporting, better 
memory management, addi- 
tional macro features. And 
there is a lot more. 

Longman Logotron has kept 
the price of Eureka 2 at £11 9 + 
VAT though all registered users 
of previous Eureka releases are 
entitled to a free upgrade. 

There is also a special trade- 
in price of £82.10 + vat to 
users of rival Rise OS spread- 
sheets. This offer is scheduled 
to run up until 1 7 September of 
this year. 

• In addition, Longman Logo- 
tron has started to ship the 


talking version of its PenDown 
word processor for schools. 

This text-to-speech system 
can say what you write, or it 
can read out previously- 
marked words or paragraphs. 
Research has indicated that 
some pupils can benefit to a 
marked degree from computers 


w h ich speak. Ta Iking Pen - 
Down is priced at £64. In 
addition, site licence options 
and discounts are available for 
existing, registered users of the 
PenDown package. 

For more detai Is , contact 
Longman Logotron on (0223) 
425558. 


STAR PERFORMANCE 


STAR Micronics has 
announced the latest 
incarnation of its popular 
LC24 dot-matrix printer series. 

The LC24-20 II is an 
updated version of the current 
LC24-20, featuring a bigger 
39K buffer which can be 
expanded to 71 K. 

Star says that the larger buf- 
fer size, combined with the 
Compressed Data Mode, opti- 
mises the LC24-20 II for 
graphical operation, reducing 
data transfer times from the 


computer to the printer by 
around 25 per cent. 

As dot-matrix printers go, 
the Star has a pretty advanced 
specification, but, at a recom- 
mended £299 + VAT, it is up 
against some stiff competition 
from the latest ink-jet printers 
produced by Hewlett-Packard 
and Canon. 

Star has also announced 
price reductions on its LC-100 
nine-pin and LC24-200 24-pin 
colour printers. Star is on 
(0494)471111. 


GERMAN 

SHOW 

ARCHICUM is Germany's 
first Acorn -specific computer 
show. The event takes place on 
18-19 September at Illertissen. 

The exhibition hall has a 
stand area of 450m 2 and UK 
exhibitors are welcome. 

The organiser is Schneider 
Scholz GbR, Rcichenbcrger 
StraBe 8, 89257 Illertissen, 
Germany, You can contact the 
organisers on 01049-7303 
6150 or fax on 01049 7303 
2332. 

ACORN 
JOB MOVE 

JO Magnani, who has 12 years 
networking experience at 
Honeywell Bull and OliveLti, is 
Acorn's new product manager 
for networking. 

Her main task will be to 
ensure schools have the best 
possible support on networking 
issues. Acorn has launched a 
network management pack for 
schools running AUN Econet 
or Ethernet-based networks. 
Acorn is on (0223) 254254. 



OAK 

SOLUTIONS 

ROUND-UP 

• WORRACAD has been 
given a facelift by Oak Solu- 
tions. The draughting package, 
capable of producing drawings 
larger than A0, gains a new 
icon-based user interface and 
is fully Rise OS-compliant. 
Drawings can be exported as 
Draw files and Rise OS printer 
drivers are supported, though a 
dedicated HPGL driver is 
retained for use with plotters, 
cutters and engravers. Wor- 
raCAD is £99.95 + VAT, with a 
£30 discount to education cus- 
tomers. Registered users can 
upgrade for £30 + VAT. 

• MKI1 of the Oak Recorder 
sound sampler is now avail- 
able. Like its predecessor it 
plugs into the primer port but 
features a higher-quality 
microphone, a more flexible 
input socket for other audio 
sources from CD players to 
electric guitars, and SoundLab 
sample editing software as 
standard. The all-in price is 
£39.95, with £5 off for edu- 
cation. Soundlab on its own is 
£19.95 (£5 off for education). 

• OAK is offering all-in-one 
ClassNet/CiassRom cards. The 
cards provide Class Rom hard 
disc security and management 
for internal drives in net- 
worked Archimedes as well as 
an ethernet interface. 

Cla^sRom, designed specifi- 
cally for classrooms, uses drive 
partitioning to enable appli- 
cations to be run on a compu- 
ter but not altered or deleted by 
pupils. Teachers have pass- 
word access. 

Network File management 
abilities to make life easier for 
network managers include 
automatic updating of all 
ClassRom hard drives in a 
ClassNet network. 

• AFTER the recent merger 
with Ace Computing in Cam- 
bridge, Oak Solutions has 
decided to move its sales office 
to Cambridge. 

All sales enquiries should 
now be addressed to: Oak 
Solutions Ltd, Broadway 
House, 149-151 St Neots 
Road, Hardwick, Cambs, CB3 
7QJ. Tel: (0954) 211760 or 
Fax (0954)211767. 


10 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 





STEP UP TO EUREKA v.2 


AND SAVE OVER £40 


ORDER FORM 

I am currently using 

□ Schema Q Pipedream Q Logistix 

Other (please specify) 

I bought it from __ 

Date purchased 

Please send me copy /copies of Eureka @ £82.10 

(£99*99 including £3*00 p&p and VAT) per copy 

□ i enclose a cheque for made payable to Longman 

Logotron 

Q Please debit my Access/Visa account 

no 

Expiry date | 

Signed , i 


Yfyou already use another RISC OS spreadsheet, here's an offer you just can't 
A. refuse ! 

/ ust tell us what it is, and where and when you bought it, and we'll supply you 
with a full copy of EUREKA version 2 at the unrepeatable special offer price of 
£82.10 (£99.99 including p&p and VAT). That's a saving of over £40 on the RRP. 

Y yut remember, this very special launch offer must end on the 17th of September, 
Jj 1993, and definitely will not be repeated. Don't be disappointed, claim your own 
copy of EUREKA version 2 today ! 


Name 


Address. 


Postcode 


J HUREKA brought the power and innovative features of the very latest in easy-to- 
H/use spreadsheet technology to all RISC OS users. And now EUREKA version 2 has 
even more to offer you: 


I 


h fact, there are over 100 individual improvements upon version 1, including 
extended documentation and a fully comprehensive index. 


Telephone, 


AU/tf/93 


Please return your order to: 

Longman Logotron Sales Department 
124 Cambridge Science Park 
Milton Road 
Cambridge 
CB4 4ZS 

Tel: (0223) 425558 
Fax: (0223) 425349 


What's 

• Scale printing of worksheets and prinMo-fit 
a single page 

• Worksheet zoom in and out 

* Eureka macrosheets 

* Complete macro language for creating 
custom worksheet functions 

new in 

* Display (and print) formulas 

* Worksheet find and replace 

- Improved worksheet linking 

* Automatic loading of any supporting 
documents 

* Fully compacting memory manager - 
dynamically releases memory when you 
dose a sheet 

* Palette editor - allows any possible colour to 
be used in a worksheet or chart 

* User definable page breaks and set print 
titles - for large worksheets 

* Function key strip 

* Chart series editor for direct editing of data 

Eureka 
version 2 

series 

* Automatic line of best fit for scatter charts 

* Display / hide points on scatter charts 

* Charting of multiple selections 

* Save a selection as a worksheet, Lotus 1 23 
file, CSV, SiD or drawfile 


Eureka will run on any RISC OS machine with at least 2MB of RAM. RISC OS 3.1 recommend, 







I 


Managing a class of children all trying to run the same program on floppy drive 
computers can be a nightmare. Discs get lost or damaged and files can be corrupted, all 
of which will waste a lot of time at the beginning of a lesson. With hard drive machines 
things are a little better, but the duplication of resources means wasted money. And there 
is still the problem of students having different versions of the software or 'accidentally' 
overwriting it. Not to mention viruses! 

Now there is a reliable alternative - Ethernet. Ethernet networking has been used by 
businesses and universities for some time, and is now available for Acorn 
computers. The benefits of a fast network are considerable, and you will have total 
control over the software used by the students. All users will also be able to share 
resources like CD players and printers, significantly reducing costs, 

RiSC Developments have designed and produced a fuil range of fast Ethernet cards for 
all Acorn RiSC computers, to be used in conjunction with Acorn’s new 
AUN Level IV network software. Our cards are being used in 
a growing number of educational establishments because 
they offer a fast and reliable solution for only £1 39. 

Networking has never been so easy, 








We also offer a complete range of 
services for the network user. In the 
first instance we would be pleased to 
discuss the planning of your network, 
and ways to maximise speed and 
make best use of available 
resources. We can offer a fuil cabling 
service, configure your systems, 
install your software and train your 
network manager and staff. We will 
also still be available afterwards to 
help with any problems that you 
encounter later. 

For anyone wishing to know more 
about networking, we have produced 
a pamphlet called 'Introduction to 
Networking Acorn Computers'. For a 
free copy, or if you require more 
detailed advice about networking, 
please do write or telephone. 


developments 


RISC Developments 

1 1 7 Hatfield Road, St. Albans, 
Herts, AL1 4JS. 

Tel: 0727 840303 Fax: 0727 860263 
















Networks 


-WITH ETHERNET 




iSI E W s 


COMING TO A SCREEN NEAR YOU 



BOTH Sony and Tax an have 
new big-screen high resolution 
multisync monitors to keep a 
lookout for. 

The latest Multivision high- 
resoiution colour monitor from 
Taxan is the 17in 875plus LR. 
17in monitors offer a 56 per 
cent increase in display area 
over the more usual Him 

The horizontal scanning fre- 
quencies supported range 
between 30 and 7 8 KHz and 
displays of up to 1280 x 1024 
pixels can be handled at 72 Hz 
refresh. If you can put up with 
more flicker, 1600 x 1200 
pixels can be displayed using a 
60 Hz refresh rate. 

Taxan says that the 875plus 
conforms to the toughest 
MPR2 low radiation emission 
regulations. The 87 5 pi us is 
£1049 + vat, Taxan can be 
contacted on (0344) 484646. 

Sony's new CPD-1730 is 
another entry into the expand- 
ing 17 in monitor market and 
can support non-interlaced 
modes up to 1024 x 768 pixels 
resol uti on, Pu s h-bu t to n con- 


trols are available to adjust 
picture settings like brightness/ 
contrast, picture distortion and 
positioning and up to nine pre- 
sets for different screen modes 
can be stored. 

Dynamic focusing is used to 
ensure focus is maintained into 


the corners of the screen and 
there is even a feature to com- 
bat distortion from the Earth's 
magnetic field. 

The CPD-1730 is also 
MPR 2 -compliant. Recom- 

mended price is £1 195 + VAT. 
Sony is on (0784) 466660. 


WIDGIT SYMBOLS 


WIDGIT Software in Leam- 
ington Spa has launched its 
Symbol Collection library of 
around 1000 scalable Draw - 
compatible symbol characters 
mainly comprising most of the 
Rebus (representation of words 
by pictures) Glossary 
originally devised by Judy van 
Oosterom and Kathleen 
Devereaux, The symbols are 
used as pre-reading aids for 
early learners and literacy aids 
for late adult learners. 


Widgit has also launched 
Viking Library , a resource 
pack which contains over 250 
annotated symbols aimed to 
help children learn all about 
the Vikings, 

Both the Symbol Collection 
and Viking Library are com- 
patible with Widgit’s langu- 
age, communication and 
literacy package, From Pic- 
tures to Words . For more 
information, Widgil can be 
contacted on (0926) 885303. 


CHRISTIAN 
CLIP ART 

A COMPREHENSIVE library 

of clip art aimed at anyone 
involved in Christian publicity 
has been ported from the PC 
and is now available from 
Swindon- based Reverend Ian 
Gooding. The bulk of the 



library, which numbers over 30 
discs, is in sprite format, but 
some have been converted to 
Draw and ArtWorks format. 

Archimedes customers get a 
good deal as though the single 
disc price is £7.99, the same as 
for Amstrad PCW and PC cus- 
tomers, there is more on each 
Arc disc. 

Contact Ian Gooding at 18 
Larksfield, Covingham, Swin- 
don, SN3 5 AD or on (0793) 
520139. 



A strong combination of words and pictures in Viking Library 


In brief 

• Micro Laser Designs and The 
Serial Port have both recently 
opened new premises in the West 
Country to serve Acorn cus- 
tomers, The Micro Laser Designs 
shop, which will specialise in 
imagesetting and publishing pro- 
ducts. is at The High Street, 
Paulton, Bristol, BS1S 5QE, Tel; 
(€761) 410711, You can find The 
Serial Port's new shop at 15 
Union Street in Wells, Somerset. 
The Serial Port is on (0749) 

670058. 

• Minerva Training, part of Min- 
erva Software, is now offering 
training courses for Computer 
Concepts' Artworks at its Exeter 
training centre. The one-day 
courses, which include lunch and 
course reference materials, cost 
£110 + VAT and sessions are 
restricted to four attendees. 
Accommodation can be arranged 
at extra cost if required. For more 
information contact Minerva on 
(0392)426160, 

• Greenware Limited has intro- 
duced a noise reduction system 
which can be fitted to Archi- 
medes computers with cooling 
fans. The Noise Killer senses the 
temperature inside the computer 
case and regulates fan speed 
accordingly. The slower the fan 
the quieter your Archimedes. 
Greenware Limited is on (0273) 
483890. 

• Psion Series 3 specialist Wid- 
get Software, has launched a 
metal desk stand for the popular 
pocket computer. The stand, 
which will work equally well with 
an Acorn PocketBook, is made 
from black anodised aluminium 
and is ergonomically designed. 

The price is £16.99 including VAT 
and Widget can be contacted on 
(0438) 815444, 

• Last month we said that Mor- 
ley Electronics' new 16 -bit User 
Port/Midi/Analogue interface 
card does not actually feature 
Midi. In fact Midi is an optional 
extra costing £35 + VAT, Morley 
Electronics is on 091-257 6355. 

• HCCS has produced a 
combined user port/analogue 
interface card for full size Archi- 
medes models like the A5Q00 f 
A300/400 series and the A 540. 

The card is priced at £39 + VAT 
and is intended to complement 
HCCS' existing Wise range of 
cards for the A3000/4000 Archi- 
medes family, 

HCCS can be contacted on 091- 
487 0760. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 13 



The RISC Disc 

Presenting a new concept in vaiue-for-money software. 

The RISC Disc contains a special selection of high quality 
stand-alone programs ready to run on your Archimedes. 



RISC Disc Number One 
includes: 


.... is 

I ftisphf-i tta-?TUr IFafiWiw l-:>p*[h£a £ 

ft;'! 'Hi 

Ip 1 ■ I m i ; M 1 

I i 13 # =*? ■' 


Desktop Font Manager - control those unruly fonts 
Desktop Trash can - drag unwanted files for safe deletion 
Hunchback - a mu Iti -screen action game 
Desktop File Identifier recognises over 300 fiietypes 
Rogues Gallery a gallery of 44 Archimedes virus strains for rapid 
identification. Click for info on each strain. 

6. CatAfiop - copies images of your floppies onto hard disc in a few K 
for instant recognition. 

7. ImageFx examples of imaging effects such as embossing 
8 Handy Hints - a dozen topical Archimedes hints 

9. Hot Art - hot keys for ArtWorks - a must for ail Artworks users 


§| 10. PollMasK Managor - Desktop programming utility for setting poll 


aifP n. Shutdown Warning - provides a customisable warning message 

| when you close down the Desktop 

The RISC Disc, which comes with a Desktop menu system providing information on each item, plus 

I developments ^ su PP°rting documentation, costs just £5.95 4 - VAT inc p&p. Order now Code RD01 from: 

RISC Developments Ltd, 117 Hatfield Rd, St. Albans, Herts All 4JS. Tel. 0727 840303, Fax 0727 860263 

RISC Disc programs are not public domain and come with full technical support and 14 days money back guarantee. 


masks 



Fully multi-tasking and so 
instinctively easy to use. 

Ideal for school and home use. Solve and 
design puzzles. Output to printer & iDraw. 
Dictionary, sample puzzles, manual, 
plastic wallet, postage & VAT all included. 

Only £44-95 (site licences available) 



THE ULTIMATE 


APPLICATION 


PANDA DISCS 
Dept (BAU I) 
Four Seasons 
Tinkers Lane 
BREWOOD 
Stafford 
STI9 9DE 


Tj iyir .IjWrN 

Touch & Learn for the concept keyboard fj 
£14-95 for editor, manual and samples, jr Ng 

Demo disc of all Panda products + the infamous rather silly 
IPanda adventure game for £1-50 (HD extras for £2 inc.) 


J 


IMAGESETTING 

DISC FORMATS 
OUTPUT 

PLOTTER BUREAU 
PUBLISHING 

REPROGRAPHICS 

PRINTING 

EXPERIENCE 


DO YOU NEED A USER-FRIENDLY 
ACORN PUBLISHING BUREAU? 


T°J 

REPRODUCTIONS 


djowt SPan-triEi i in SPuStuliiticj 

Direct from your DTP liles created in Impression, Ovation. 
Tech Writer. Easi Writer, Pipedream, Wordz, Draw, Poster, 
Artworks, Vector etc. 

80Ok/1,6Mb floppy, 44Mb Syquest or 21Mb floptical discs, 
standard or compressed (SparkFS. ArcFS etc), FaxPack 
file transfer also supported, 

Bromide paper or film, including 4 colour separations, at 
resolutions up to 2540 dpi, screen rulings up to 175 Ipi. 

8 pen plotter output up to At from Worracad. Designer V3 
and Draw files. 

Typesetting/page make-up service with over 1500 type- 
faces available, including the entire Linotype™ Typel font 
library and most RiscOs outline fonts, Although we use 
mainly Acorn DTP equipment we can deal with many Mac/ 
PC files, and can, help with translation or output direct. 

Reprographic $ Platemaking facilities up to A2, which we 
can combine with DTP film output (stripping in high quality 
photographic halftones, PMTsetc}. 

With several years experience dealing with Printers and 
their needs, we would be happy to advise on, or arrange 
any printing you may require, 

Established in 1989 to provide local Printers & Designers 
with a Typesetting, Repro ; and Platemaking service, we 
can also call on more than 10 years previous experience 
within the Printing & Publishing Industry. 



c or details, prices etc, please write, fax or phone to:- 
TJ. REPRODUCTIONS 


25 Parkway. Ed gw a re 
Middlesex HAS 5EY 
Tel; 081 3S1 2455 Fax; 081 905 6553 


14 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 





G R A P H I 



CHANGING FACE OF THE ARC 



Morpheus uses a grid system to define the morphing process 


ONE of the big buzz words in 
computer graphics these days 
is morphing. If you’ve seen the 
video for Michael Jackson’s 
song Black and White’, or 
more recently, the advert for 
Castrol Oil, you’ll have seen 
morphing in action* And we at 
Acorn User are not the only 
people providing morphing 
software (for more details, sec 
pages 36 and 76)* 

A new morphing package, 
Morpheus y has been coded by 
Henrik Bjcrregaard Pedersen, 
who was also responsible for 
the Process image processing 
package featured last month. 

Morpheus consists of a sin- 
gle Rise OS application that 
allows you to take two pictures 
and in terpo 1 ate or 4 m orph ' 
between them. The actual pro- 
cess of morphing involves the 
computer dividing the two pic- 
tures up into sections and then 
squashing and fading each sec- 
tion so that it turns into a 
corresponding section in the 
second picture. 

You obviously need to tell 
the computer which parts of 
the picture have to be changed. 
In order to do this, a grid is 


placed over each picture and 
the points (or knots) on the 
grid moved so that the grid 
lines fall along contrasting 
areas on each picture. 

The amount of work 
required to produce each frame 
is considerable, but if you’re 
willing to wait, quite excep- 
tional results can be achieved 
and there is even the provision 
for 24- bit clear files to be used 
for the start and end pictures. 
Playback of animations is 


possible, and in addition you 
can get Morpheus to produce 
Replay files. This second 
option also allows you to view 
files consisting of 24-bit colour 
frames. 

The release version of Mor- 
pheus is expected to be ready 
around the middle of July. It 
will retail at £30 + VAT and 
can be obtained direct from the 
author at Stengaards Alle 13 B, 
DK“2800 Lyngby* Denmark. 
Tel: 010 (+45) 42 88 37 56. 


PIC OF THE MONTH 



THIS MONTH'S winner is the work of Rob Thompson form Lincoln and 
forms part of his A-fevel coursework folder. ‘Still life' makes use of 
Atelier's extensive selection of graded fills and the fact that the picture is 
in Mode 15 is hardly noticeable. £10 goes to Rob for his work. 

If you have produced any pictures that you think are good enough, please 
send them in right away. Always state how you created them (what 
packages you used etc), and the machine you used. It needn't just be 32- bit 
computers; art work produced on Beebs is just as welcome. 


ADD TO 
ARTWORKS 

Computer Concepts designed 
the Artworks design package 
with future expansion in mind. 
A special programmer’s refer- 
ence manual is therefore 
currently in production which 
explains how to write Artworks 
modules. The manual contains 
a great deal of technical infor- 
mation and even includes 
much of the source code for 
the existing Artworks modules* 

The developer's pack costs 
£10 + VAT and is available 
from Computer Concepts. 

Whilst on the subject of Art- 
works, Computer Concepts has 
released another programmer's 
reference manual, this time 
explaining how to implement 
rendering of Artworks objects 
in third-party applications. 
Further details from CC Tel: 
(0442) 63933. 


In brief 

• Matt Black, purveyor of 
‘innovative products' for the Archi- 
medes, has just released the 
second in its series of Vanguard 
Graphics packs. Cowboys 8c Indians 
Is billed as a 'comic book construc- 
tion kit' and provides everything 
you need to create your own car- 
toon strips. 

A whole selection of cowboy 
and Indian characters are provided 
in a number of different poses. A 
selection of speech bubbles allows 
the user to add words to a story 
and a special 'Comic Book' outline 
font is Included to give strips that 
authentic look. 

The Cowboys and Indians pack 
costs £17 me* VAT. A booklet pro- 
vides plenty of hints and tips on 
how to create your own comic 
books. 

Further details on this and Mat 
Black's large range of dip art can 
be obtained from Matt Black, PO 
Box 42, Peterborough, Cambridge- 
shire, PEI 2TZ. Tel: (0733) 315439. 

• The list of Computer Concepts' 
Turbo Drivers increases this month 
with the release of Rise OS 3 
Drivers for the Epson Stylus 800 
inkjet printer. 

The speed of the new Turbo 
Driver is claimed to be up to five 
times faster than other available 
drivers, and it's also the only driver 
to allow control over half-tone 
screens. 

The Epson Stylus 800 Turbo 
Driver costs £57.57 inc. VAT and 
comes complete with a manual and 
the special printer cable used by 
the Turbo Drivers. 

Rise OS 3.1 is required and at 
least 2Mb of Ram is recommended, 
Further details from Computer 
Concepts, Gaddesden Place, Hem el 
Hempstead, Herts, HP2 GEX. Tel: 
(0442) 63933. 

• You can contact the Graphics 
Page with any news, views, com- 
ments or pictures for the page by 
writing to Rob Miller, The Graphics 
Page, BBC Acorn User, 101 Bay ham 
Street, London NW1 0AG, or by 
modem via Arcade BBS user #1144, 
Arcade is on OBI-654 2212 or 081- 
655 4412. If you are using Arcade, 
please keep it to just messages. 

Any large files such as pictures 
should be sent on disc to the BBC 
Acorn User address above. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 15 




DOWNLOADING THE WORLD 



The world downloaded from NASA 


THE Internet is a massive 
worldwide network of net- 
works, linking companies, 
colleges, universities, schools, 
research, military and govern- 
ment sites of all countries. It is 
not owned or run by any one 
organisation, and use of the 
network for communication 
itself costs nothing. 

Networks of computers 
communicate across the 
Internet using a set of 
hard ware- independent pro- 
tocols called TCP/IP, which 
allow multiple simultaneous 
operations to take place, such 
as sending and receiving e- 
maiL collecting network news 
groups (Usenet), and file 
transfers. 

On the Internet in the UK, 
archive sites such as the 
Higher Education National 
Software Archive (HENS A) at 
Lancaster University are 
accessible for file transfers. 
Using TCP/IP, amazingly it 
costs no more to download a 
file from a file server in New 
Zealand than from Newcastle, 

Access to the Internet is pro- 
vided by various organisations, 
and it’s here that charges are 
levied by the gateway or direct 
service providers. The Demon 
Internet Service has just cele- 


THE Digital Databank BBS 
located in Welwyn Garden 
City aims to bring together a 
mass of information about 
Acorn machines and related 
products into an easily access- 
ible reference system. 

SysOp John Stonier hopes it 
will promote a healthy interest 
in the Acorn industry and not 
only bring like-minded Acorn 
owners around the UK 
together but bring Acorn com- 
puters to the attention of non- 
Acorn owners. 

A number of special-interest 
areas are featured, such as the 
Portable area for A4 and Psion/ 
Acorn Pocket Book owners. 
Computer Clubs, Public Key 
cryptography, Sci-Fi and 
Amiga Users group. The 
Images and Clip Art section 
features all sons of material. 


brated its first anniversary, and 
the original target of 200 sub- 
scribers has expanded to 
around 1200 one year on. 
Demon has flourished as the 
Internet expands at what seems 
like an ever increasing rate, 
with more and more sub- 
scribers joining the nek 
A Demon account offers 
low-cost dial-up access direct 
to the Internet, with your own 
Internet site ID and e-mail 
address, and read/ write Usenet 
news feed. There are thousands 
of newsgroups to read and post 
to, from rock ‘re roll to tennis. 


The Di gi ta I D atabank ’ s 

Company Factfile section con- 
tains information about the 
activities and products of a 
number of companies in the 
Acorn marketplace. 


including Acorn computer 
groups. You can ‘Telnet 7 into a 
computer that may be on the 
other side of the world, as you 
were using a terminal directly, 
or use ‘FTP 7 (File Transfer 
Protocol) to download riles. 

Demon Systems charge only 
£12.50 + VAT initial charge 
and £10 + vat monthly. An 
Archimedes version of TCP/ 
IP generic ally known as KA9Q 
can be downloaded from 
Demon, as well as from a num- 
ber of bulletin boards. Call 
Demon Systems on 081-349 
0063 for more information. 


The Digital Databank is 
FidoNet node 2:254/25. The 
numbers are 0707 329306 
(300-I6k8HST 8N1) 24hrs and 
0707 323531 (300-2400bps 

8N1 MNP 1-5) 1800-0600 hrs. 


In brief 

• A new scrolling bulletin board 
to call is Altered State BBS, run by 
Steve Smith in Hem el Hempstead. 
Online at the moment from 10pm 
- 6am, the BBS supports all 
speeds to V32bis (except 1200/ 
75). White primarily an Archi- 
medes BBS, Steve hopes to 
attract PC and Amiga users too 
with a lively, friendly and infor- 
mative message base combined 
with quality file download con- 
tent. Altered State BBS is on 
(0442) 233207 BN L 

• Motorola Codex claims its new 
326XA Fast-5 DC modem can outs- 
trip the basic ISDN digital line 
rate of 64Kbps, using VFast tech- 
nology and synchronous data 
compression to achieve full 
duplex speeds up to 72kbps on 
analogue lines. The modem 
should be available this month 
but the price has yet to be 
announced. Contact Motorola 
Codex on 081-669 4343. 

• Following BTs June half-price 
cheap rate local call offer, the 
cost of new residential phone line 
installations has been reduced by 
£40 to £99 + VAT from 1 June, and 
to £99 + VAT for additional lines 
from 1 September. You'll also 
notice the alphabet re-appearing 
on the keys of new phones « 
remember the old days of 
'Whitehall 12127 This is to enable 
BT to use US-styfe Freephone 
numbers like 0300 HELPLINE. 

• In the US, Digicom Systems, 
backed by Hewlett Packard, are 
developing a future-proof 
modem technology using Ram 
based digital signal processing 
(DSP). Called SoftModem Tech- 
nology, it allows different 
algorithms to be downloaded 
from a PC into on-chip DSP 
memory. Upgrades can be made 
by file transfer from the com- 
pany's support BBS service. So 
when you want a faster modem, 
you just download one, 

• You can contact me by writing 
to: David Dade, BBC Acorn User, 
101 Bay ham Street, London NW1 
0AG or by e-mail to: DaviD® 
arcade.demon.co.uk or by modem 
on Arcade BBS, User #2 - 08V654 
2212 or 081-655 4412. 


OPENING A BANK ACCOUNT 



The main menu from the Digital Databank BBS 


16 SBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 







lability Quality P erformance Reliabi lity Quality Perfo 


ce Reliability Qut 
Performance Rel 
lability Quality P 
:eP 


U MMAH 

SYSTEM 


Per 
labi 
?e 1 
Per 
labi 
:e 1 
Per 
labi 


-ii — r. :iu o_ 




Reliability Quality 
formance Reliabi 
llity Quality Perfo 

U(y 


_ — l: — l 


Attention All Owners of an A3000 or A3010 
With an Internal Hard Drive 


abi 

rfo 
lity 
abi 
•rfo 
lity 
abi 

rfo 

e R eliability Quality Performance^ Reliability Qu ality 

liabi 


A network of HCCS dealers has been appointed to professionally 
upgrade your computer to Ultimate using your existing hard 
drive. The old internal IDE hard drive, subject to suitability (most 
are), can be installed onto the Ultimate Expansion System, thus 
providing two (A301 0) or three (A3000) free expansion slots. 
Contact HCCS for your nearest trade-up dealer. 

Keep your affordable options open - trade-up to Ultimate! 


Perfo 
abili 
:e Re 
Perfo 






3 


abili 
je Re 
Perfo 
abili 
:e Re 
Perfo 
abili 
:e Re 
Perfo 
abili 
:e RS 

P^rfnrmnnrt> Rvlinhilitv Duality pRjc£axmWLC£. JR^linhi 
Ultimate MultiPodules are available with 20Mb, 40Mb, 60Mb and 
80Mb IDE Drives from the HCCS product range. 

:e Reliability Quality Performance Reliability Quality 


1=00^ 
i pen uppc 


a erfo 

tality 

liabi 

a erfo 

tality 

liabi 

°erfo 

tality 

liabi 

3 erfo 

tality 

liabi 

erfo 

tality 

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tality 


0 


A 30 00 


Hard Disc Drives 

100Mb External 

£479.00 

200Mb External 

£699.00 

HardCardtOO 

£429.00 

20Mb IDE Internal 

with User Port 

£179.00 

60Mb IDE Internal 

with User Pori 

£269.00 

Memory Upgrades 

1Mb RAM 

£49.00 

4Mb RAM 

£129.00 

Expansion 

Econet 

£39.00 

Serial Upgrade 

£17,50 

User/Anatogue Card 

£39.00 

Podule Case 

£15.00 

Video Digitisers 

Mono Vision Internal 

£49.00 

Colour Vision Internal 

£79,00 

Colour Hi Vision Internal 

£129.00 

Mono Vision External 

£62.00 

Colour Vision External 

£92.00 

Colour Hi Vision External 

£142.00 

Ultimate Expansion System 

Multi Podule (3 slot) 

£38 00 

Multi Pod u le + 20M b+PS U 

£229.00 

MultiPodu Ee+ 60M b+ PSU 

£309.00 

A5000/400/300 
Hard Disc Drives 

100Mb Internal SCSI 

£399.00 

200Mb Internal SCSI 

£649.00 

20Mb Internal IDE 

£179,00 

60Mb Internal IDE 

£269 00 

Memory Upgrades 

1Mb RAM for A400 

£45.00 

2Mb RAM for A5000 

£89.00 

Expansion 

Econet 

£39.00 

Video Digitisers 

Mono Vision 

£49.00 

Colour Vision 

£79.00 

Colour Hi Vision 

£129.00 

Ultimate Expansion System 

Multi Podule (2 slot) 

£39.00 

A3010 
Hard Drives 

20Mb IDE 

£186.38 

60Mb IDE 

£271,49 

Memory Upgrade 

1Mb RAM 

£29.79 

4Mb RAM 

£126,81 

Ultimate Expansion System 

MultlPodule (JOE + 2 slot) 

£41.70 

M u It I Podule +20Mb+PSU 

£220.43 

M u Iti Pod u le +60Mb+ PS U 

£297,02 

A3020/4000 
Memory Upgrade 

2Mb RAM 

£59 00 

Expansion 

Econet 

£39 00 

Ultimate Expansion System 

MultlPodule 

with User Port (3 slot) 

£38.00 

MicroPodules for Ultimate 

Laser Express 

£249.00 

Colour Vision 

£79.00 

Colour Hi Vision 

£129.00 

SCSI, with CDFS 

£69.00 

Analogue 

£29.00 

Colour Video Out 

£49.00 

Serial 

£49.00 

MIDI 

£49.00 

Scanner (Hand) 

TBA 


ASK ABOUT OUR NEW 
ULTIMATE STARTER PACKS 


HCCS products available from 
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This is a small selection of our product range, 
please ask for full details 

HCCS ASSOCIATES LTD 
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TYNE AND WEAR NE9 5JJ 
TEL: 091 487 0760 
FAX: 091 491 0431 

All prices excluding VAT 
Postage and Packing Free E&OE 






s/ Laser Quality 300dpi Colour/Mono Printing 
V'' Virtually Silent Operation 
V"' Small Footprint 

v/ HP Desk Jet 500C Printer Compatible 

sy' FREE Driver for Windows 3.1 or RISC OS 3.1 or 
RISC OS 2 

s/' Optional 70 Page Automatic A4 Sheet Feeder - £40 
s/ Prints on Plain or Coated Paper 
s/' Compatible with IBM pc’s, Archimedes, RM Nimbus, 
Commodore Amiga 


BETH JET (Mono) Inkjet 

300dpi Laser quality mono inkjet 

v" Gives Excellent 300dpi Laser Quality Printing 
sf Virtually Silent Operation 
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V'' Optional 70 Page Automatic A4 Sheet Feeder - £40 
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sy' Compatible with IBM pc’s, Archimedes, RM Nimbus, 
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ProPrinters (optional extra) 


C0L0URJET Series 2 

300dpi Laser quality colour/mono inkjet printer 




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P U B L I 


DOMAIN 



ZAP EDITING UP TO SCRATCH 



Editing files with a little extra Zap 


SEVERAL commercial 

products have tried to replace 
Edit and add the features that 
should have been there from 
the start. As a public domain 
utility, Zap by Dominic Symes 
wins hands down. 

The program allows a wide 
range of files to be edited, 
including text, Basic, machine 
code or raw data formats. 
Using Zap to edit text shows 
off the program well, with 
comprehensive search facilities 
and windows that scroll auto- 
matically when you want to 
select several pages of text. 
The option to output the result 
of a search to a separate win- 
dow is very useful as is the 
undo option. 

For the progra m men Zap 
allows Basic and machine code 
to be written in the desktop, 
where ease of editing is vital. 
Then you can drop it into 
Basic or run the listing directly 
with a simple hot-key press. 


Zap also makes it very easy to 
splice bits of code between 
windows: essential for 

programmers. 

One or two bugs are still 
present, but Dominic is con- 
stantly updating the program, 
though, removing bugs and 


adding new features, A full C 
editing mode is planned so that 
all possible areas of editing can 
be covered. 

An essential program for 
anyone who uses Edit and, 
considering it is PD, you can’t 
go wrong. 


MENON MOVES TO 2.06 



He non Control 


Objects 


Heiury usage 


□BE 


... . .. ■ 


rfls::Hji'(Disri,S,MP/DTP.!2SP 


Current Menu 


Morton Info 


bslow, If 
ion, add 
tase, and 
iuVe free 


! Printer DEI 
M/Sprits 4 
BasicEdit 
i FST t 


Men on Options 

EW m 




ffus lt^saflp v 


QUffnrUn 




E_J 

RrcFS 2 


V Utilities v 


lln 




VERSION 2 of the popular and extremely useful desktop application 
launcher is now available, and is well worth a look. One or two bugs have 
been removed, and a much neater menu system has been implemented. 


I 

i 


i 


I 


FRESH ON 
THE MENU 

AS a desktop utility, Dinnenu 
helps get the most out of Rise 
OS, allowing easy access to 
large directory trees. 

ft is effectively an extension 
of the open parent option 
found on filer menus. By click- 
ing Menu on the title bar of a 
Filer window, a menu of all the 
previous directories will 
appear, allowing easy access 
back through the directory 
structure. 

This is obviously only 
worthwhile if you have a hard 
disc, but if you use a compre- 
hensive directory structure it is 
definitely worth adding this to 
your bootup sequence. 


ARC EMPIRE LAUNCHES DISC MAG 


NORWEGIAN group Arc 
Empire has joined the busy 
disc magazine scene. 

Having liked the contents of 
New Dawn but not the dis- 
played Zynx aims to create an 
Arc scene, similar to the effect 
Grapevine had on the Amiga. 


Apart from an excellent mini 
demo featuring a pi asm a- map- 
ped vector polygon, the main 
magazine code was not up to 
the high standard usually 
associated with Arc Empire. 

The text-scrolling was poor, 
but there arc a number of inter- 


esting articles including a 
novel approach to speeding up 
your A3000. 

A magazine produced by a 
big name demo group is bound 
to attract contributions, so 
issue two should be worth 
looking out for. 


In brief 

• Dave Holden of APDL is hold- 
ing an international competition 
for the best PD and shareware 
software on the Archimedes, For 
more information, send an 5AE 
to: APDL, 39 Knigton Park Road r 
Sydenham, London, SE26. 

• The Lunchtime crew H authors 
of the popular disc magazine, 
have been completely rewriting 
the magazine program. This 
should make a debut very soon. 
Keep a lookout for a review soon. 

• In addition to Arc Empire's 
new disc magazine, the Acorn 
Archimedes User Club publication 
is soon to be released. Formed in 
the usual disc magazine style, 
with news reviews and PD spread 
over two discs, AAUC will be up 
against tough opposition from 
the well-established Illusions . 
Further information can be 
obtained from : AAUC 58a Brank- 
some Drive, Nabwood, Shipley, 
West Yorkshire BP18 48E. 

• Newly-formed Bytepool Pro- 
ductions has excelled with its first 
code, the Nirvana megademo. This 
multi-part demo is presented well 
with good use of quality music 
and a nice, rippling disc during 
loading. The five main sections 
do not feature anything amaz- 
ingly new for the Archimedes, 
but contain some nice sprite 
effects. The transparency section 
is very fast: and this is no easy 
thing to achieve on the Archi- 
medes compared to the Amiga. 

In anticipation of the next 
show in October, demo giant 
Armaxess is working on a brand- 
new multi part megademo, which 
should be ready for the planned 
release at Wembley. From what 
Tve seen so far, the demo should 
put Armaxess back to the top of 
the Arc demo scene, as well as 
adding some revolutionary 
effects only just being intro- 
duced on other machines like PCs. 

• If you have anything interest- 
ing to say about PD or you just 
want to drop me a line, you can 
contact me, COBRA, at BBC Acorn 
User, 101 Bay ham Street, London 
NW1 DAG. For addresses of PD 
libraries, see the Software Show- 
case at the end of the magazine. 
Share and enjoy. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 19 






J.L Lilt IltW 

rn A301G 
lat it looks 
nicer 
1 its prede- 
>or, the 
100. The 
ping of the 
Lputer is 
:h more 
adynamic 
want of a 
ter word), 
case is not 
deep, and 
fu notion 
s are now 
mellow 
rn green, 
her than 
ish BBC 
, The case 
also no 
ger the 
.al cream, 
is "warm 


ellll jtu. cl L Lilt Scl lllt 111. 

Curve. As is usually i 
with an excellent con/ 
that's been said 
exciting about tjr 
worth consider] ry jf 


which is so hard to press that most users will opt for 
simply switching the machine off and on? The offi- 
cial line is that' n " 1 ' 

but I still thinx f — . 


machine i 
is not in s 


The new TV n 
that the compt 
screen using t 
for expensive c 
the A3010 to ir 
ly usable, but 
colours crawl 
patchy. Small 
yellows and c rt 
being close to 
computer for 1 
eyes pop out. 
that produced 
need to buy a 
micro showed 
comparison, a 
quality of your 
play is perfect] 
not quite up to 
buy a monitor 
pected bonus c 
put through yo 
th^flBhbou rs 


IDE Disc, $ RISCdevs. CDs 


THE HARD R 
The A3010 / 
the machir jj 
for conneflV 
disc, a Su^f 
als, two b]/ 
colourful 
This can 
want your 


WHAT'S HEW, PUSSYCAT? 

Physically, therefore, the A3010 re 
improvement on the A3000 in a num 
However, 1 found that the newly de 
drive button, which is now almost fli 
case, was rather hard to locate with 
Another personal niggle was that th 
ton, which is now on the left-hand 
case to prevent confusion with the 
button, is inset into the computer c 
can only be pressed using a pen or s 
design feature is intentional, and of 
Break can still be used to reset the 
most cases, but what use is a button 
hard to press that most users will of 
switching the machine off and on? 
tine is that then kids won't accident* 
but \ stiU think it is a little too hard t< 


for the recently launched A4, and it has a sleek slop- 
Pig design which is much mor#oni fort able than the 
pr eviou s Aconi uiou sa Th e in o il seisal so co loure c 

■ ] i t ), f 

c^necfer is back 

more convenient than the socket under- the A^Bo. 
and there's a removable flap at the back wheBH^ 
fl&i ni expansion card will fit (t he sa me c ard* tnaMit 
the A3 000 will fit the A3010)^^^ M I 


nHNRPystic 

r>^B joysticks 
sys 

whwBPovide? 
joysticks. For 
SWI number 
which simply r 
stjjt&of the joy 

exRggng games, 

st&kfport, as they need specific code to read the joy- 
stilks. Quest for Gold, which is provided with the 
lamily Solution (see below) makes use of the joy- 
sticks, as do most recent games. One small niggle is 
thaUthe joystick ports are not numbered on the 
loriiputer's case, but that's not a major problem. 


ition (£449 
VAT), 
ich I will 
t at in this 
iew, isj 
ted square 
it the coo- 
ler market, 
1 is being 
d through 
high stre^H 
)ps in an 
empt to 
iture some 


I J , therefore , 0 1 (Bftp i Bents Bj 

irhWoviffl|iit on the ASOjffltn a rKIbtt if Mays. 
H^kvc^I fo _md that the^Bly drivel 

hard |o locate 

personal niggle was that the reset button, which is 
now on the left-hand side of the case to prevent con- 
fusion with the disc drive button, is inset into the 


disc, you 
need to b 
to click o 
when you 
inserted 
This fea 
present o 
A5000 an 
A4, was 


There are a couple of other interesting points about 
the hardware side of the A3010* There is only one 


Optical character recognition system 


Sleuth is a new Optical Character Recognition (O.C.R.) 
package which converts human readable images of text into 
machine readable form. It processes a scanned image of 
printed material and converts it into an ASCII file which may 
be further processed using a text editor or word processor. 

Sleuth is ideal for converting magazine articles, newspaper 
cuttings, legal documents, program listings, other resource 
materials etc. etc. 

Sleuth v 1.0 is a low-cost entry package into OCR and produces excellent 
results on a range of typefaces and sizes. It is the first in a planned family 
of products which will take OCR on Acorn machines to full professional level. 
Any future OCR products will be available as upgrades to existing users. 

Sleuth is very easy to use - simply drag your scanned image into the input 
window, select the area to be converted and click to start. The ASCII 
conversion is displayed in the output window' from where it may be saved. 
Sleuth is fully multitasking allowing you to correct any mistakes in the 
converted text w hile it is still converting the rest of the text 


Price £49 

+ £2 carriage +VAT 


Please phone for a de tailed specification, and for education and site licence prices . 


What Sleuth can convert 

Sleuth has been trained with a popular set of fonts 
(including most PostScript fonts) and can handle type 
sizes between 9 and 24 point. Other fonts will work too, 
but with reduced accuracy. Sleuth vl.0 only recognises 
fonts in their regular styles Le. not bold, italic, condensed, 
nor does it recognise accented characters. 

Sleuth can achieve an accuracy of over 97% on recognised 
fonts using good quality 400 dpi scanned images* but the 
accuracy is reduced if the image is of poor quality or if the 
font is unrecognised. Conversion speed is between SO and 
250 wpm depending on the hardware in use. 

For special applications, RISC Developments will consider 
training Sleuth on new fonts supplied by the user, 
A charge w ill be made for this service. 

Equipment required 

You will require a hand-held or flatbed scanner which 
produces mode 18 mono sprites. The minimum resolution 
required is 200 dpi, but for best results you need 300 or 
400 dpi. Sleuth will run on a 1Mb machine, but for 400 
dpi scanners we recommend a machine with 2Mb or more. 



RISC Developments Ltd 

7 17 Hatfield Road t SL Albans , Hertfordshire AL 1 4JS 
Telephone 0727 840303 Fax. 0727 860263 



E D U 


I O IS! 



DIGGING UP OUR VIKIING PAST 



THE third in Sherston's 
impressive Arcventure series, 
Arcventure III: The Vikings, 
has just been launched. This 
latest exploration is aimed at 
seven to 1 1 -year-olds and 
includes an introductory movie 
sequence complete with 
musical soundtrack. Based 
around the archeological 
excavation at Coppergate in 
York (Jorvik), it allows pupils 
to dig and see what they find, 
with help from a computer 
containing details of objects 
that might be discovered. 
Pupils also travel back in time 
to Viking England to explore 
and meet people and ask 
questions about the objects 
they have dug up. The pack 
includes extensive resource 
materials, including sprite and 
Draw files which can be 
transferred to other appli- 
cations. Priced at £31.95 and 
available on 28 days’ approval, 
for further details call Sherston 
on (0666) 840433. 


Widgit Software has also 
produced the Viking Library , a 
resource pack comprising over 
250 symbols and words, 
intended to help children read 
and write about the Vikings. 
Designed for use with the 
literacy software Front 


Pictures to Words, the pack 
also comes with a story about ' 
the Vikings which covers I 
fighting, living, food stuffs and j 
other facets of Viking life. , 
Viking Library costs £12.50 | 
and is available from Widgit i 
on (0926) 885303. 


SCORING TOP MARKS 


TEN out of Ten Educational 
Systems has announced that 
the latest in its popular series 
will be 10 out of 10 Maths 
(Algebra). Due out at the end 
of June, the pack contains six 
games covering ten essential 
areas of algebra, including 
sequences, formulae, graphs, 
equations. symbols and 
inequalities. Aimed at ages six 
to 16, graphics are auto- 


matically targeted at the ability 
of the pupil and each game can i 
be played at a variety of levels. , 
All settings can be overwritten 
and progress is monitored and 
displayed. The disc also j 
contains a free game, Wordfit , ( 
which helps children spell ( 
algebra-related words. 

The program costs £25.95 
and comes on 14 days* trial. 
Information on (0742) 780370. 


ACTIVE-IT 

SUPERCHOICE Adventure | 
and Acorn have launched a i 
series of courses called Active- | 
IT, which combine outdoor | 
activities and IT sessions. Four 
labs have been installed at a 
centre in Dorset, each kitted t 
out with 12 A5000s linked to | 
Nexus shared hard disc I 
systems. Software is plentiful 1 
and hardware includes laser I 
printers, scanners and data- | 
logging equipment. There are 1 
also Pocket Books for off-site i 
work and tuition is provided. 

Outdoor activities include I 
abseiling, climbing and arch- ) 
cry. Data can be collected and 
transferred to the IT room for 
further work. 

iThc local area also provides 
opportunities for study visits 
and worksheets on the Pocket , 
Books can be set up to suit ( 
schools’ needs. Any combi- , 
nation of IT and activities can 
be arranged. 

Prices range from £47 for a | 
weekend to £175 for a week in i 
high season. Teachers with ten 
pupils go free. Superchoice is 
on (0273) 676467. 



TALKING 

PENDOWN 


LONGMAN Logotron has 
announced the final release of 
Talking Pendown. The new 
version, which says exactly 
what is typed and won't ignore 
mistakes, was linked to the 
Somerset Talking Computer 


Arch 


i in e d e s 


PenDown 



project. This combined IT and 
traditional methods to help 
children with serious reading 
difficulties and complementary 
materials from the project will 
be published in the autumn. 
Priced at £64 (£120 for a pri- 
mary site licence), no extra 
hardware is necessary and 
upgrade paths are available for 
existing Pendown owners. 
Further details from Longman 
Logotron on (0223) 245558. 


PACKS 
FOR FREE 

RICKITT Educational Media 
has announced a Software Inc- 
entive Scheme for Schools. A 
free colour magazine, called 
The Educational Software 
Review , lists a wide selection 
of software for all types of 
home computer. 

Parents who nominate a 
school when buying software 
will be sent a voucher for 10% 
of the order value, which the 
school can then use towards 
purchasing the software of its 
choice. The scheme is 
expected to run indefinitely 
and details are available from 
Rickilt Educational Media on 
(0460) 57152. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 21 






u w 


i uui ni^wu^ tiwui 11 im.uili 


QuickTile (vl. 01) E25+VAT ITopicArt 


j Up until now it has only been 
j possible to print posters from 
1 Draw & Sprite files. Now with 
j QuickTile you can create 
posters from ANY RiscOS 
j application. Simply enter the 
j size of poster required and 
j select PRINT directly from the 
j application! QuickTile does 
i the rest, printing each tile with 
! crop marks and tile reference. 

| Requires RISCOS 3,10 or later, 

| Send vl.00 disc back for free tt/g. 

| Upgrade from Tiler for £15+ VAT 




I Showroom 

Come and visit our Showroom, 
f most Acorn systems & software 
I on demonstration. Free car park. 

Finance 28.9% APR I 

I Finance is available on all Acorn 
[ hardware, 13,75% APR finance is 
i available to teachers etc. 

Acorn Ext Warranty! 

1 Year On-Site Service 

A3010, A3020 Or A4000 £25 I 

A5000 £34 

3 Year Warranty & On-Site Service I 

A3010, A302OF0 £42 

A3Q20HD, A40OO £51 

A50Q0 £63 1 

The above must be purchased at the same time 
as the computer system. Call tor further details. 


A new form of dip art 
comprising of single discs 
containing approximately 
50 hand drawn high quality 
draw format clip art 
images, each on a single 
subject. Site and area 
licences are available, 
please ring for details. 


TopicArt9 - Dinosaurs 


£8 

+ VAT 

per disc 


11 Topic Art subjects are 
available now. Please 
specify when ordering. 


Subjects available 

1 - General 

2 - T ransport 

3 - Costumes 

4 - Entertainment 

5 - Bugs 2 Slugs 

6 - Road Signs 

7 - Sports Equip 

8 - Sports Figures 1 

9 - Dinosaurs l 

1 0 - Symbols 

1 1 - Tools 


Ink Jet Refills 

Why throw away empty 
inkjet cartridges,,* 
...when you can refill them 
at a fraction of the cost 
Colours available include 
Cyan, Magenta, Stack, 

Red, Green, Blue, Brown 
I Single Refills (req an orig cartr.) £7 
Twin Refills (req an orig cartr.) £12 
j Please specify colour(s) required 
125m! Cleaning Kit £4 

j 400ml Cleaning Kit £10 

j ColourSep software £1 5 

Can be used with HP DeskJets, Canon. BJ's {not 
BJ3QG), JP's + others. Ring for further details. 




Buy 4 
TopicArt 
discs get 
one free 

I Not inc SpecialArt 



TopicArt7 - Sports Equipment 


Topic Art4 
Entertainment 


Special Art £20+ VAT (each) 

Special editions of TopicArt consisting of a minimum of 4 discs full of clipart 




Hardware & Books (All prices exclude UflT) 


I SCOT? 


PH 


| Acorn Pocket Book £21 
Psion 3 256k £185! 

A-Link for either of the above £51 
Call for other peripherals 


ree 3 Year Ext Warranty &| 
On-Site Maintenance 
Family Solution 

Connects to std TV. 1 Mb RAM, 

Floppy drive, 2 joystick ports. 
Learning Curve Sys 
As above with 2Mb RAM, Standard 
Monitor & Learning Curve software, 

MiMiia 


£424! 


£680 


m 

! 3 Ye 


fee 3 Year Ext Warranty 
On-Site Maintenance 
Floppy Disc System £749 

As A30i 0 less LC software & joystick 
ports. Inc Std Monitor. 2Mb RAM. 

60Mb Hard Disc Sys £899 

As above with 60Mb Hard disc. 

Add £50 for MultiScpn Monitor. 


A4 Portable 


I Free TrackBa1I7Spare Batt 
A4 2MFD Portable £1399 

A4 4MHD Portable £1699 

4Mb RAM, SOMb HO, 2Mb Floppy 
Disc, LCD Screen, PC Emulator. 


■ree 3 Year Ext Warranty & j 
On-Site Maintenance 
Learning Curve Syst £1445j 

2Mb RAM, SOMb HO, MuftiScan Mon. 
Learning Curve Software. 

A50G0 2MHD80 Syst £1399] 
A5000 4MHD162 Syst £1599; 
Add £175 for Microvitec 
CubScan 1440 Monitor 


pgrades 


A3 000 up to 2Mb 

£45 

A3QOO up to 4Mb 

£129 

A3010 up to 2Mb 

£39 

A3Q1G up to 4Mb 

£149 

A3020/A400G 2Mb 

£79 

A5G00 2Mb 

£79 

A5000 up to 8Mb 

£399 

Please call for details 


A4O0 RAM £35 per Mb 

A540 4Mb 

£255 

Printers 


Free 3 Year Ext Warranty 1 
On-Site Maintenance 
Home Office System £999 [ 

2Mb RAM. Floppy Drive. SOMb HD. 

Std Monitor. EasiWriter2, Jr Database I 

80Mb Hard Disc Sys £949' 

As above without additional software 

Add £50 for MultiScan Monitor. 

For 1Mb 336 PC Card add C250 
For 4Mb 486 PC Card add £450 


Canon BJ-1 0 Sht Fdr £49 
Canon BJ-20G £279 

Canon BJ-230 £309 ! 

Canon BJC-800 Tu rbo£ 12991 
HR DeskJet 5G0C £379 [ 
HP DeskJet 550C £539 

Add £35 to above printers 
for CC's TurboDriver 
HP LaserJet 4 600dpi £Call 
LaserDirect HiRes4 £949 
LD HiRes4 Card £349 

3eanLight 256 £199 

ScanLight Professional £549 
SCSI Card for above £1 39 


on i tors 


Acorn Colour akfsomg £199 

Acorn MultiScan £249 

add £10 for Archi/A3000's 

Microvitec CubScan £399 ! 

O.iSdp. 40 presets & 3 year warranty!* 

Philips 1710 17" FST £849 

0.26dp, 26 presets & 1 year on site 


Upgrades 


I 38 6 PC 1Mb/4Mb E39Q/E490 
1 486 PC 1 Mb/4Mb E490E590 
| A4k 1Mb 386PC Card £275 
j A4k 4Mb 486PC Card £499 
5.25 1 ' Disc Buffer Archi £39 
5.25‘ Disc Buffer A5k £35 
i ARMS 25Mhz £175 

Colour Card (CC) £249 
| DeltaCat Joystick £29 
Dust Covers 2 piece £1 2 
Dust Cover A3070 £8 

i FaxPack (CC) £279 

j I/O Expansion Card £79 
! Joystick l/F (All M/C's) £32 
i Midi Expansion Card £65 
; Micro Mouse (Clares) £29 
NetGain Ether or Eco £200 
I NetGain 10 User u/g £100 
j Parallel Sound Sampler £41 
Serial Upgrade A3000 £17 

Speeding Joystick £10 
User/Midi Card A3000 £46 


igitisers 


Hawk V9 Mkll L249 [ 

Hi-Vision Cof Digit'r int £129 
Vision Mono Digitiser int £48 | 
Vision Color Digitiser int £76 [ 
Vision Mono Digitiser ext £60 
Vision Color Digitiser ext £89 


RISCOS 3.1 A5000 £16.171 
RISCOS 3.1 Others £42.7q 
Acorn Books 


A3OX0 Technical Ret Manual £29,95 
A4 Technical Ref Manual £65,00 
j A540 Technical Ref Manual £65-00 
A 5000 Technical Ref Manual £65.00 
Assembler Manual £25.00 

ANSI C v4 Manual £25-00 

BBC Sasic VI Guide £19.95 

1st Word+ Manual £10.00 

DDE User Guide £25.00 

DTP Manual £10.00 

RISCOS 2 User Guide £15.00 

RISCOS 3 PRM s £99.00 

Call for books not listed 


fc*nmp=raiT! 

| Archi Game Maker's Manual El 
Arch i Assembly Lang Manua I £14.95 
Archi Operating System Guide £14,95 
Begin. Guide lo WIMP Prog. £12,95 
Budget DTP £12.95 

Dabna nd G wide to I mpression £14.95 
DTP on the Archimedes £1 2,95 
Graphics on the ARM M/C'S £14.95 
Mastering 1 at Word* £ 1 3,95 

First Impressions £35.00 

Good Impressions £30.00 


Ink Cart/Ribbons 


B J - 1 0/20 Ink Ca rtudge £17 

BJ-300 Ink Cartridge £12 

DJ-500 Bk Hi-Cap Cart. £22 

DJ-500C/550C C olour Ca rt . £23 

S',vih24 Mono/Cole ur £5/£l5 


Ordering by Telephone 

Please specify I he goods you require and for which computer. Please have your 
credit/deb 4 card ready. We will require the cardhorders name, address, delivery 
address if different and fhe start 6 expiry dates of the card. 

Ordering by Post 

Piease specify the goods you require and for which computer including your 
TELEPHONE NUMBER 6 delivery address. Send complete with a signed 
cheque/postal order or alternatively for credit/debit cards, the card number, 
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c 


Desktop Projects Ltd 

Authorised Acorn Dealer (Tel: 061-474 0778, Fax: obi -4740731) 

’ ' ~ * rT : Part Ford St. Stockport, Cheshire. SK3 0BT 












WT 


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> ; ' 


to 18.1 


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The easy to 
| use slide 
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Create 


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~7it£Utfy 

& 


Slid* 1 Show 

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sequences of frames containing text of 
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shadows and rubout boxes using the 
RISCOS fonts. Sprites can also be 
included in frames and positioned and 
resized as necessary, Several screens 
can be linked together with the sequencer j 
which allows you to fade each screen out 
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| hard disc is recommended. 


Load, play, 
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Acorn/Cumana Multimedia 


Acorn Multimedia Expansion System £499 

Comprises A4000 style case complete with power supply, SONY multi- 
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CD caddy, etc. The unit can also house a 3.5" SCSI hard disc and another 
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External Toshiba CD-ROM Drive (The fastest available) £399 ' 

I The above drive is a triple spin speed unit and is PhotoCD compatible. The 
unit is housed in its own case with power supply and comes with one caddy. 

Magneto Optical Drives (SCSI) 

128Mb Magneto Optical SCSI Drive 28ms 1 fl high £749 

I The above unit is a bare drive and can be mounted in the spare floppy bay 
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External case for above £69 

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The following are complete 
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120Mb 16ms Cache £275 

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330Mb 1 2ms Cache £Call 

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add £1 5 to above for A3000 Ext 
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The following are complete hard 
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120Mb 18ms Cache £395 

200Mb 18ms Cache £545 

330Mb 1 2ms Cache £Call 

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A3Q 00/A re h i/ A 50 00 External 


£475 

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CCall 

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£65 

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£54 

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£27 

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(C™ 


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Items in red are New/Low price 


Chopper Force (4D) 

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Pandora's Sox (4D) 2Mb 
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- Includes Conqueror, Rotor, 
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Populus (Krisalis) 
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Quest for Gold (Krisalis) 


£19 

£19 

£19 

£15 

£19 

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£26 

£25 

£19 

£15 

£22 

£15 

£19 

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£19 

£19 


Repton 3 (Superior) 
14 (Superior) 


Repton 

Rockfall [Eterna) 

Real McCoy 2 (40) 2 Mb 
-includes Apocalypse, Hofed Out, 
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Real McCoy 3 (4D) 2 Mb £26 

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X-FIRE (4D) 

Zarch (Superior) 

Zool (Gremlin Graphics) 

2Mb - RAM required for RISCOS3.1 
OS2 - Runs on RISCOS2 only 


£15 

£19 

£19 

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Education 

1 Adv. Playground 5+- (Storm) 
1 Amazing Oliie 4+ (Storm) 

£17 1 

£14 

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£37 | 

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£23 

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£33 

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£T5 

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£19 B 

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£35 9 

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£15 B 

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£89 

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a Naughty Stories set of 6 (Sh) 

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• ■ Please cad for titles not listed 



Desktop Projects Ltd 

/ Plaae* tit if 1.^1 i ara rtfiarari a hotter orir 


Tel: 061-474 


Please contact us if you are offered a better price elsewhere, we will 
do our best to match it. We operate the Acom Teachers Scheme, 

Special offers do not apply to Finance and Acom Assist Scheme 
Registered This document was produced entirely on the 
Squirrel Dealer Archimedes using Impression, Artworks, Draw & Paint. 

M I H H I IH I - j 1 H . .. . • I I 







D T R 


Read all about it 

Harlington Upper School publishes its very own tabloid newspaper, Grapevine, 
using the Ovation DTP application, Louise Graham went along to see how they do it 


T he days are numbered for 
the old school newsletter, 
those cobbled together termly 
events produced with type- 
writer, photocopier, scissors 
and glue. Harlington Upper 
School is forging a new way 
ahead with its Acorn -produced 
school newspaper, Grapevine f 
whose production standards 
would shame many a local 
free-sheet. 

The paper is the brainchild 
of English teacher Chris 
Thursby who is sitting in his 
Harlington School staffroom 
and proudly flicking through 
the latest issue. It is all pro- 
duced on his Acom machine 
using Ovation, According to 
Chris ‘it’s the gossip, or what 
we call the graffitti page that 
has proved the most popular. 
But we also cover school 
events, skiing trips and so 
forth. So it's a paper about the 
school'. 

Keen to keep the newspaper 
lively Chris, with an eye on the 
national tabloids, introduced a 
page three girl and a page nine 
'hunk of the month'. Fear not, 
these are innocent profiles and 
feature pictures of a couple 
who have been going out 
together for a long period. 
Says Chris: ‘They pretend they 
don't want to be featured but it 
hardly takes any persuading at 
all really/ 

The rest of the paper covers 
news, pieces from teachers and 
articles by students on every- 
thing from hobbies to drama 
and sport. 

Fundraising 

The paper’s budget comes not 
out of school funds but through 
an enviro mentally friendly 
link-up with several local busi- 
nesses. ‘We collect waste 
paper, used laser printer toner 
cartridges and empty 
aluminium drink cans from 
local firms,’ says Chris, 'and in 
the school we collect all waste 





GRANADA 


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HOME RUN TO 
KANSAS CITY 


KANSAS CITY USA. \tatnt at Ihf 
brinin Komis bnu-hill Inm, hii 
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lilt Filler. 

They ■ (i? Jtaupui ai l!h fjn kj m 

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National 
success for 
Harlington 
music 


Grapevine: created with Ovation and 
a little bit of flair 

paper. The proceeds pay for 
the newspaper and the 
students are very keen on 
recycling anyway, so it 
works very well’ . 

The labour force for 
the recycling project is 
provided by students 
and teachers, and a 
local printer runs off 1200 
copies for a modest £400. 
However, computerisation has 
not quite reached every comer 
of the operation. ‘Because the 
printing company we use is 
geared up for using Apple 
Macs I can’t just send off an 
Acom disc, so I print out 
everything on the laser 
printer,’ explains Chris. * 


'The printer is 
unfortunately only A4, so I 
have to print each page in three 
parts and then cut and paste it 
onto an A3 sheet. We don’t 
have the scanners for photo- 
graphs so the printing com- 
pany deals with the scanning.’ 


Putting together the first 
issue of Grapevine was a time 
consuming process, Tt took me 
about three weeks of evenings 
and weekends to do the first 
issue. But 1 had to set up the 
master pages and decide on the 
fonts and everything, so that 
was an unusually long time, I 
hope. The font size is larger 
than on most papers but if it 
was too small it might put off 
some of the students, 

T use a serif face for the 
main bodytext (Trinity), along 
with sanserif Homerton for the 
smaller headlines, because 
they’re easy to read and look 
very modern, which is impor- 
tant for a school paper. I also 
use Newhall for headlines 
because that’s good and strong. 

‘Basically 1 stole all the 
ideas from other papers, I got 
hold of all the tabloids and lots 
of regional papers and slav- 
ishly pinched other peoples 
ideas. The headline sizes come 
the Daily Express 
for example. I 
also pinched the 
sports page layout 
from the Express. 
And I noticed how 
papers used lines to 
divide articles and 
capitals at the begin- 
nings of paragraphs to 
draw people in. And I 
chose to have a five 
column layout because it 
gives more flexibility.* 

Chris has learned a lot from 
the first issue. ‘The next 
thing I’m going to buy is a 
large monitor, l spent so 
much time reducing the page 
so I could see how it would 
look that it was driving me 
mad on a normal size monitor; 
Moreover to capitalise on the 
paper’s success he’s about to 
approach local firms for adver- 
tising rather than for just old 
paper and drinks cans. Til call 
them up and see if they’re 
interested. If they want to 


24 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 




DTP 


The four stages of Grapevine 






4 - GRAPEVmE Sunnier 1 933 



STAGE ONE: When setting up the master page, Chris went for five 
columns to allow greater flexibility in arranging the photographs and 
articles on the page, as four columns only allows articles two by two or 
one by three. The masthead consists of the page number, title, headline 
and decorative top border, Chris designed his own sprite for the 
masthead in Paint and dropped it into two picture frames on the page. 


- 1 :' i It ' • y.: 

1 1 i ■ ‘S i . ►r.jn.hCi 

I Im.H.'d, VI-!!: : ■ 

■ ~ r i . j j i-e K -» i-:- .ji 

Rluv-jd 1 * i M -ii' 

I 1: I - r " ■ | . ,1-,; — t f: . 

-..!•! •-•• I Ml .1- r / 

tfit in ja ! ii. .i 

■ ■ ■ if ‘ r- ■. ■■ i! 
jJti-llM.'il t*: ill 

T.ir i ii- ■-> - • Khir ,- I : 

; 'Ll. javr Viil-H 1-s 
5 

11m.' i r Ft r -ik 

f I I- 'N M .:■! I - [fuu 

"■ Sr, -I: If. 

• • in-- 'nr. ,. ■■'-- ! ! • :r 

nur.' is. .tfiv -b.lv:-.-- : 

■ rr i ' - h- ; m.*T- :K- 

rcun I i i jKTricnt virttWEmry 

■ 

1 

STAGE TWO: The photograph to go with the main story was just over 
two columns wide so it was reduced slightly at the scanning stage. The 
length of the story then roughly depended on the size of the picture so 
that the text and photograph would match up. Chris decided to use 
quite a large font size for the main text (1 1.Spt Trinity with 5 per cent 
leading) to make the page more attractive to its young readership. 



STAGE THREE: The headline was influenced by the Daily Express and 
Chris copied the New hall typeface of their headlines. The 'strapline' 
above was put in Homerton, a sanserif typeface for a good contrast. The 
story about the careers day was then just long enough to fit in a single 
column down the right hand size. Separating articles using thin tines 
and capitalising the first word were two ideas from the national press. 


STAGE FOUR: The careers day article was given a large headline and a 
reversed byline to attract the readers eye. When using reversed out text, 
Chris recommends a sanserif typeface as this gives it a clean appearance. 
Finally the entire page was printed out in three sections {to allow the 
join to be made In the most suitable place) and sent to the printers with 
the photographs to be scanned. 


attract young teenagers I think 
a school newspaper might be a 
good place to advertise.' 

Grapevine ' s success ties in 
neatly with the Newspapers In 
Education project which runs 
from a head office in Ton- 
bridge Wells to encourage a 
link-up between schools and 
local papers. Several local 
papers have a page designed 
and written by students. Says 
Chris: *If you don’t want to 
produce a complete news- 
paper* this is a good option to 
go for. The kids are learning 


about newspapers* about the 
media, I think it improves their 
writing and eommimicatiuon 
skills. Next year when we start 
running a media course, I hope 
to get the students more 
involved in actual production, 
subbing and so on. Obviously 
the students already have a 
great deal of commitments 
with school work but it’s a 
very worthwhile exercise.’ 

On next month *s subscrib- 
er's disc we will provide a 
complete Ovation file of the 
G rape vine n e ws paper. 


Five tabloid tips 

If you arc thinking of starting 
up a school newspaper, there 
are a few basic guidelines. 
Here arc some of Chris* tips 
for starting a successful tabloid, 

• Shop around. Printing firms 
often charge differing amounts 
for the same job and it is well 
worth getting several quotes, 

• Lift ideas from other publi- 
cations. Look carefully at all 
the newspapers you can and 
steal ideas shamelessly. 

• Never use too many fonts. 


This is the most common DTP 
error and makes any document 
look amateurish, 

• Get as much input as you 
can from anyone who knows 
about the printing business. A 
good starting point would be to 
read The Teacher’s Guide to 
Publishing a Newspaper, 
available from the Northcliff 
Newspapers in Education pro- 
ject, tel: (0892) 512321. 

• Break up the page with 
small stories, mini -headlines 
and so on. This makes the page 
look far more appealing. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 25 



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LEARNING CURVE 

Wordprocessing is a basic skill, so why get it wrong? 

John Rennie looks at the write stuff 


S o you’ve got your shiny 
new A3010 plugged in 
and ready to go. But go where? 
Okay, you may spend the first 
six months of your home 
computing existence 

murdering aliens and saving 
lemmings, but then there is 
that nagging recollection that 
you bought a computer for its 
educational value, as an art 
tool, as a word processor. 
Maybe even to put together 
your own magazine. 

Over the next few months 
we are going to look at some 
of the things you can do with 
your Acorn, with some of the 
applications that come as 
standard with your machine. It 
should serve as an introduction 
for new users and help you get 
the most from your computer. 
One of the most popular 
applications is the wordpro ces- 
sor. This makes sense. 
Whether you are writing let’ 
ters, novels or essays you want 
to be able to submit your fin- 
ished work in intelligible form. 
The wordproeessor gives you 
the quality of typing without 
the hassle of hitting carriage 
returns at the end of lines and, 
if your typing's like mine, 
saves on copious amount of 
Tippex. Typing for non-typists. 

There are a multitude of 
packages, some marvellous, 
some miserable. Each has its 
ow n loyal fans. The good news 
is you don't have to shell out 
for one. EasiWord comes as 
standard with the A3G10 and, 
ignoring the old adage that you 
get nothing for nothing, it’s 
actually very good. 

The conventions that nor- 
mally apply with your machine 
apply w ith EasiWord, so when 
1 click the middle mouse but- 
ton I get the main menu; if I 
move across the Select option 
to its submenu 1 find CTRL-C 
copies text and CTRL-v pastes 
it; the Effect submenu not only 



Keeping your letter short, neat and to the point 


has text effects - bold, italic 
and so on - but lists standard 
keypresses. All this helps flat- 
ten the learning curve. 

MENU SYSTEM 

The File submenu gives you all | 
running information on the file | 
you arc working on; filename, 
whether you have modified the 
file since your last save, and 
how many words and lines you 
have churned out - vital for 
students or journalists, who 
write to length. In File you also 
have the standard save box I 
(with keypress shortcut F3), i 
where you can save your File 
either as a standard text file, or 1 
1 preferably as a 1st Word+ file 
which retains all the text 
effects you have used. You'll 
also find Print in here. 

I s vc taken a standard letter 
to demonstrate basic word pro- 
cessing with EasiWord. Easy 
eh? Well, no actually. Judging 
by the letters we receive with 
dodgy spacing and Martian 
spelling there’s a lot of people 
out there not taking care of the 
< basics. First off, decide how 
the finished article is to look. 

Ranging addresses to prede- 
fined places on the page is no 


problem, that’s what the tabs 
I are for. Open your EasiWord 
j file by clicking once on the 
icon on the icon bar with the 
left-hand mouse button and the 
tabs are set at 5cm intervals on 
the ruler along the top of the 
page. You want to alter them? 
Fine, Double-clicking on a tab 
in the ruler deletes it; double- 
clicking on a space on the ruler 
deposits a tab. 

Alternatively, click on Edit 
ruler in the Edit submenu and 
you can reset all tabs, alter the 
page width and decide whether 
you want your text justified 
(like the words on this page) or 
ragged (take a look at Cheats’ 
in Game Show). If you are 
writing a letter, you will want , 
at least one tab for your 
address on the right (as in the 
shot above). Setting further 
tabs will allow you to have 
one, two, three or more 
columns ranged neatly across 
the page: useful for laying out 
a CV, for example. 

The shot on this page gives 
you an idea of how you want 
i your letter laid out, Jf you 
make a mistake, no problem. 

1 You simply highlight the bit of 
I text you want to replace by 


clicking your left mouse button 
at the beginning and the right 
button at the end. then type in 
the corrected text. If you 
decide the paragraph you 
ended with is simply so good 
you want to move it to the start 
of the piece, you Delete and 
Paste - and your text is shuf- 
fled into position. 

If you want to repeat a sen- 
tence, word or paragraph, just 
Copy and Paste and, as well as 
being copied, the original text 
will be left in place. If you are 
writing a CV or job application 
you really should resist the 
temptation to put text in 17 
different sizes using a dozen 
different effects. That said, the 
Effect submenu gives you all 
variations you need to high- 
light text: bold, italic, under- 
lined, subscript or superscript. 
You can highlight text and 
swap it from upper to lower 
case. Again, quick keypresses 
are listed beside commands. 

When you have finished, 
Page layout gives you a 
thumbnail view. Now you can 
look at the margins all round 
your text and adjust them to 
the best effect. You can still 
make changes here. The Utili- 
ties menu deals with all the 
I bits and pieces. You'll find the 
spelling checker here (none of 
us think we make mistakes, 
then we see the thing in print 
and find we’ve spelt errror 
with three r's). 

Find and replace is invalu- 
able if you have made a 
mistake, say on a person's 
name, the whole way through 
your letter. GoTo lets you go 
to the beginning, end, or any 
page or paragraph, 

I'd challenge you to find an 
easier fit for writing with your 
Arc than EasiWord. But that’s 
enough words. Next month we 
burst into full colour as we 
explore the creative possibili- 
ties of Draw ♦ 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 27 




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Compatible with a range of MIDI keyboards and drum machines ■ Very easy to use grid based entry method ■ Data 
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VIDEO 


The cutt i ng edge 


Eidos used Acorn technology to revolutionise the video editing business. 
Now it plans to bring the same facilities to your desktop. 

Ian Burley gets the full picture 


F ull motion video (FMV) on 
the Archimedes is about to 
be given a useful boost with 
the arrival of a new real-time 
digitising and compression 
system from Eidos which will 
complement Replay, Eidos is 
also bringing Archimedes 
users the fruits of its 
experience in the professional 
video and movie editing 
market with a sophisticated 
digital movie editor, 

Eidos was set up in 1989 by 
professional video editor, Nick 
Davies and Archimedes owner, 
Stephen S treater. Acorn's 
Roger Wilson — inventor of 
Replay - is a non executive 
director. The story starts when 
Nick bumped into Stephen, 
who was doing a PhD at 
King's College London. 
Stephen had been experiment- 
ing with video animation on an 
early monochrome video digit- 
iser with his Archimedes. 
Despite the relatively -primitive 
results of Stephen's experi- 
ments, Nick was struck by the 
potential of digital movies in 
his own field: video editing. 
Traditional video editing, still 
dominant today, involves end- 
less winding and rewinding of 
video lape reels or cassettes, 
viewing raw takes, thus deter- 
mining edit points and the 
running sequence. This is 
known as linear editing in ihe 
trade; serial in computer terms. 

Nick knew a non-linear or 
random access way of viewing 
the recorded video would 
make life much easier for tape 
editors and cut costs too. The 
solution was to use a computer 
- the Arc — to enable instant 
viewing and editing of any 
section of a digilised movie, 
Eidos went on to develop a 
sophisticated Archimedes- 
based video digitising and soft- 
ware compression engine 


The professional system 

Professional video editors don't usually edit their programmes online, straight from raw 
master tapes. Online editing equipment is very expensive and so is hiring an online editing 
suite. It's much cheaper to edit the programme offline, creating an accurate facsimile of the 
eventual programme but using cheaper equipment. Once you have made your dummy offline 
programme you will have a comprehensive list of editing instructions like time-code edit points, 
audio and video fades, which can be applied directly to the original master tapes during an 
online editing session. 

Offline editing is a time-consuming process. There could be literally dozens of original tapes 
and inevitably finding a desired sequence will involve searching miles of tape. This is a linear or 
serial process - you can't just jump straight to a part of the tape like you can with a CD. But you 
can If you digitise the video onto a hard disc or, better still, a portable high capacity MO 
(magneto-optical) disc. This random access ability is non-linear. 

Eidos set out to produce such an offline non-linear editing system back in 1989 using the 
Archimedes as its platform. Two things needed to be created: a fast and efficient digitising and 
compression system and a flexible digital video editing application. 

After three years of development the results are Compressor and Optima. The former is a real- 
time 25FPS video digitising and compression system which uses an 8Mb Archimedes A540 to 
create digital movie files on 650Mb magneto-optical (MO) removable discs. The A540 uses a 
special card for the video digitising, but compression is carried out entirely in software. As 
compression is real-time, the system is symmetrical - digital recordings can be made at normal 
playback speed. Stephen Streater developed a completely new ESCaPE compression algorithm for 
the system. ESCaPE compression is highly eff Scent with frame data reduced to as little as 
0.35% of its original size. About two hours of video can be recorded on to each MO disc. 

Video sequences recorded on to magneto optical disc in ESCaPE file format can then be 
edited using Optima, which is a Rise OS-resident digital video editing system. 

Optima mimics the usual analogue video editing environment where this is 
desirable: two video windows represent a pair of monitors, still frames can be viewed 
and there are jog/shuttle buttons to pinpoint exact frames. Video time code informa- 
tion from the original source tapes is preserved and Optima can compile an edit 
schedule list of edit points for later use when editing the final programme online. 

It's still early days for non-linear editing systems, but one day non-linear will 
dominate and, although just the editing software costs £1 500, Optima is still 
one of the cheapest and most flexible non-linear systems. 

Random Distribution distributes Com- 
pressor and Optima for Eidos and over 
twenty A540-based Optima 
systems have been shipped 
date. Both the BBC and Car- 
lton TV in London use 
Optima systems. Pro- 
grammes using the system 
include Channel 4's Dis- 
patches , BBC's Watchdog, 
plus a number of pro- 
grammes from indepen- 
dent producers. 

For more details of the 
professional system con- 
tact Random Distribution, 

9-15 Oxford Street, Lon- 
don W1, tel: 071-287 3230, 






VIDEO 


called Compressor. At the 
same time, Eidos developed 
its digital movie editing 
system called Optima. This is 
now used by an increasing 
number of professional video 
editing companies and is an 
outstanding example of the 
power of Rise OS. 

Acorn’s Replay 

With Replay, Acorn was one 
of the first to allow full motion 
video to be integrated into 
desktop software, like Genesis 
and Magpie and multimedia 
CD- Rom publications. Replay 
on the Archimedes was hailed 
because it needed no expen- 
sive additional hardware to 
decompress and display digit- 
ised movie files in real time 
and at acceptable speed. 

Replay is capable of good 
quality movie playback in a 
Rise OS window, with stereo 
sound at 12.5 frames per sec- 
ond (FPS), and as high as 
25FPS with high-end machines 
like the A 5000, A 5 40 or even 
the powerful A4 notebook. 

Getting your video into a 
Replay A rm iM ovie f i I e, 

however, isn't so easy. Instead 
of choosing an established 
industry standard like JPEG 
(Joint Photographic Expert 
Group) which would have 
been too slow, Roger Wilson 
opted to invent a proprietary 
compressed digital movie file 



The Optima system, running on an A54D with two magneto-optical drives 


format, Moving Lines. This 
format is optimised for real- 
time software-based decom- 
pression and playback but is 
strictly asymmetrical. In other 
words it takes much longer to 
digitise and compress video 
frames in the first place than 
decompress and display them 
afterwards. 

It takes five seconds to com- 
, press a single frame using 
Moving Lines, so a one minute 
sequence would take over an 
hour to compress. This is com- 
pounded, as a huge uncom- 
pressed movie file has to be 


; created by the video digitising ■ 
, process prior to compression, 
i For a minute of uncompressed 
i digital video we’re talking 
1 around 20Mb of data which 
* reduces to 4-5Mb after 
f compression. 

Acorn has already released a 
( low -cost Replay movie master- | 
i ing system called Replay D1Y. 
This includes a version of 
Replay's Moving Lines com- 
pressor and the Irlam video 
i digitiser card. Unique way's j 
| Empire can also edit Replay , 
1 movies. The problem is that i 
the uncompressed data is so 1 


bulky that the system is effec- 
tive but limited to those who 
can afford a large enough hard 
drive (and are willing to wait 
an hour for every minute of 
video to be processed. ) 

It has been argued that this 
drawback has limited Replay's 
appeal at the creative end. 
Everybody loves to w f atch 
Replay movies but far fewer 
are willing to go to the trouble 
of making them. 

Over a year ago Eidos real- 
ised it had a solution to the 
lengthy Replay movie-making 
process. Eidos set to work on 
producing an alternative, 
quicker, digital movie source. 
This was to be played back by 
Replay- compatible appli- 
cations using the ESCaPE 
(Eidos Software Compression 
and Playback Engine) 
decompressor, 

ESCaPE 

Unlike the professional Eidos 
Compressor, which required a 
special digitiser board and an 
expanded Acorn A540 work- 
station. the cutdown version 
(to be called ESCaPE) is 
designed to run on a standard 
4Mb Archimedes, though 
Arm 3 -level processing power 
is required. An A50Q0 would 
be ideal, though an A300 or 
400 series machine with an 
Arm 3 upgrade will probably 
do. ESCaPE is designed to 


Stage 1 : Viewing the original video 



To edit an ESCaPE movie, first use Eidoscope to view what you have 
digitally recorded in one or more ESCaPE files from your original video. 
These are the takes - 'rushes 1 as they are known. In this example, lota's 
Da fa Power database is used to log stills with short descriptions. The stills 
can be clicked and dragged directly from the Eidoscope video window. 
ESCaPE file pointer information is also recorded separately. Eidos is 
working on making this an all-in-one operation. 


Stage 2 : Deciding on a sequence 



Next you have to sort through your shots and decide on a sequence of 
events for your final programme. Once again, OataPower is used to load 
back Into Eidoscope the ESCaPE file pointer information linked to the 
still, and representing the scene you want to insert, A pair of small 
Eidoscope viewing windows are used In this example. At the end of this 
stage you will have a sequence of shots which will require tidying up 
and, probably, audio dubbing. 


30 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 




VIDE O 


work with the Irlam digitiser 
card supplied by Acom in the 
Replay DIY kit. 

To start with, ESCaPE will 
only offer a frame rate of 
12.5fps compared to the full 
25fps Compressor is capable 
of. It's possible Eidos will 
offer software upgrades at a 
later date to boost ESCaPE ’s 
performance to 25FPS, though 
this is largely dependent on 
hardware. A faster, next- gener- 
ation Archimedes could be the 
spur the company needs. 

Nick Davies speaks of com- 
pressed ESCaPE movie file 
sizes in the region of 40 sec- 
onds playback per megabyte of 
data; 1.5Mb per minute com- 
pared with a Replay file of 4- 
5Mb per minute. 

This isn’t the whole story as, 
despite Nick's feeling that 
Replay and ESCaPE playback 
quality is 'comparable’, Replay 
maintains a detectable edge in 
crispness and clarity, with less- 
obvious pixelation. Neverthe- 
less, Replay can’t do things 
like running nearly a minute of 
video off a 1 .6Mb floppy disc. 

Eidoscope 

Eidoscope is the second 
weapon in the Eidos armoury: 
it is a junior version of the 
Optima movie editing appli- 
cation. Optima was developed 
to let professional video edi- i 
tors see how their edits would 


appear in rough - the final pro- 
gramme being edited from the 
original video recordings 
online. 

Eidoscope is no longer a 
pre viewer like Optima was* Its 
main purpose is to edit the 
actual video files which will 
make up an ESCaPE pro- 
gramme. Most of Optima's 
formidable array of editing 
features have been retained in 
Eidoscope. The main excep- 
tions are that only two audio 
channels are supported instead 
of Optima's four and there is 
no support for time- coding, 
which is largely unused in sub- 
professional video anyway. 

At first glance there is little 
difference between an Eido- 
scope and Optima screen. Two 
video monitor windows, each 
taking up about a fifth of the 
screen, dominate the view. 
Both windows have play, 
pause, jog and fast forward 
buttons. It is possible to jump 
to a particular frame if you 
know r where in time it exists in 
the sequence. Time-coding 
may not be supported, but a 
time-base is still provided. 

Eidoscope, like Optima, 
benefits from a frame-access 
technique which uses buffering 
to enable virtually instant 
access, even if the source drive 
is slow. This means a sequence 
can be pieced together and 
played back seamlessly with- 


out creating a new file. After 
you've fiddled with your pro- 
gramme to get it just right, a 
brand new composite pro- 
gramme file can be saved. 

Underneath the monitor win- 
dows is a time line editing 
window. This is a multi-track 
sound and vision sequencer 
where you can insert start and 
end points of video dips 
you’ve just viewed. Once a 
clip is on the sequencer, you 
can drag its limits to extend or 
shorten the sequence. A com- 
prehensive selection of dis- 
solves, wipes and other special 
effects, like picture in picture 
animations, is featured too* 

Audio functions are just as 
impressive. It’s possible to 
hear the audio attached to an 
individual frame and step 
through listening one frame at 
a time. Accurately- synchron- 
ised sound edits are incredibly 
easy and each soundtrack level 
can be altered or faded inde- 
pendently. 

Eidoscope is also a model 
Rise OS application. Practi- 
cally everything on the screen 
can be dragged and dropped. 
Other Rise OS applications 
integrate beautifully with Eido- 
scope, and software packages 
like lota’s DataPower database 
and the standard Draw, Paint 
and Edit applications are 
actively recommended to 
Optima users. 


Conclusion 

There is no doubt that Eidos 
has exciting multimedia solu- 
tions in ESCaPE and Eido- 
scope * ESCaPE should 
encourage a lot more Archi- 
medes users to have a go at 
making movies. No other per- 
sonal computer platform has 
anything to match in terms of 
convenience and sheer usabil- 
ity. Those movies will be 
playable via Replay- aware 
applications using an ESCaPE 
decompressor, so we should 
see lots of new, personalised. 
Genesis , Magpie style multi- 
media 'books’ as a result. 
Eidoscope is a dream editor 
and I expect some really 
snazzy ESCaPE movies will 
be created using it. 

Eidos expects its ESCaPE 
compressor for the Acorn DIY 
card will be priced well under 
£100, Eidoscope is expected to 
cost under £200. This makes 
Eidoscope a fair bit more 
expensive than Uniqueway’ s 
Empire editor, but the extra 
cost is more than justified. 

My only hesitation about the 
whole thing is that the play- 
back picture quality of 
ESCaPE needs improving 
slightly to match Replay, but 
Eidos says it is addressing this. 
Other than that, Eidos is onto a 
surefire winner. Contact Eidos 
on 081-9417899. 


Stage 3: Assembling the sequences 


Stage 4: Adding special effects 



Now the time line window at the bottom of the screen comes into play. 
This shows where the currently-selected video sequence fits into the 
overall running sequence of the movie you are editing. The start and end 
points of each scene can be dragged forwards or backwards in time. Here 
three Eidoscope windows are shown, two small and one large, and it Is 
possible to cut and paste from one window to any other. You can view 
edits instantly and make as many alterations as you like. 


Finally, the time line shows the running sequence you have settled on. 
Audio dubbing has been completed as shown on the two audio time line 
sequences below. At this stage you can introduce special effects from a 
special button menu. Here, a diagonal wipe from one scene to another is 
shown. Once again you can view any edits and effects and change them 
instantly, or even view the whole programme, before finally choosing to 
save a brand-new composite ESCaPE programme file. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 31 








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* Keyboard Extension Lead £6 

* 4 Poduie Backplane £25 

* Fan for above backpfanes £10 

* Rise Os Extras Software Disc £5 

* SCSI Card8 bit £129 

* SCSI Card 16 bit £149 

* SID Utilities Discs - Set of 4 £19 

* ST506 Hard Disc Controller Card £99 

* A5000 Dust Cover £9 

* A5000 Technical Reference Manual £65 

* A4 Spare Batteries £49 

* IDE ROM Upgrade for use with RISC GS3 £16 

* Sean fight Junior £199 

* Scan light II A4 £279 

* Scan] ight 1 1 S h eet Fe ede r £139 

* Scanlight Professional £529 

* CC Faxpack £289 * Colour Card £239 

* Wild Vis i on Chroma Ge n lock £ 1 89 

* Wild Vision Chroma 250 £338 

* Wild Vison Chroma 350 £339 

* Hawk V9 Mk 2 Standard £179 

* Hawk V9 Mk 2 Dithered £245 


Watford Electronics Headquarters - Luton 


Scan256 Grey Scale Scanning 


If you need a 256 grey-scal e hand scanner for your 
Archimedes then look no further. 

Scan 25 6 gives you up to 256 levels of grey at a 
maximum of 400dpi and is supported by state-of- 
the-art sophisticated software - for only £159. This 
makes it the only sensible scanning and image 
processing solution for the Acom 32-bit range. Just 
compare these features: 

• More than one copy of the image held in memory 
at once. 

• Allows multiple consecutive operations without 
saving the original to disk. 

• Highly advanced dithering and image size 
reduction. 

• Convolution digital filtering with over 100 filters 
gives high quality images from poor quality scans. 

• Adjustable scaie and size during scan. 

• Supports State Machine G8 Graphics Card. 

• Includes shearing and rotation. 

• Saves images in industry standard formats: TIFF, 
Sprite and AIM. 

• True brightness, contrast and gamma correction. 

• Multiple options - scale to page, centre sideways 
selected area. 

• Selectable scanning modes. 

• Plus much much more.,. 

Please specify Archimedes type, not compatible 
with A301Q, A302Q, A40O0. „ 

£1 59 


• Scan256 for A3000 Micro 


£169 


A3010 DTP Pack 


Supplied with 3,5" Floppy Disc Drive and a 
mouse. Colour Monitor and lead, TV 
modulator, 30Mb fast IDE Hard Disk Drive. 
'Compression' utility to increase the Hard 
Drive capacity to typically 60Mb. the highly 
acclaimed Computer Concept s Impression 
Junior DTP package, EasiWord 
wordprocessor, Quest for Gold game, 
applications suite of software packages and 
comprehensive audio training tape. 

RRP; £1095 

Sale Offer Price: £775 

• A3010 DTP Pack with 

Learning Curve £875 

• Additional 1 Mb RAM fitted £39 


Specfal Education discounts 
available on micros, RAM upgrades, 
ARM 3 Turbo Card, etc. Please write 
in or telephone: 

0582 74 55 55 


RISC OS 3 Upgrades 


• A 5000 Soft wa re U pg rad e Kit £ 1 6 

• Software Upgrade Kit for the rest £40 

• Hardware Upgrade Kit 300/440 £25 


Archimedes RAM Upgrade 


All our memory upgrades are simple to fit. No 
soldering required. Fitting instructions supplied. 

• R 3 00-4 Layer RAM upgrade board (Bare), £25 

• R302-A3000 - to 2MB RAM Upgrade £29 

• R3Q3-A3G00 - to 2MB RAM Upgrade 

(expandable to 4MB) £49 

• R304-A3000 - to 4MB RAM Upgrade £99 

• R305-A3010 — to 2MB RAM Upgrade £39 

• R306 - A302Q/A4000 - to 4MB RAM Upgrade £70 

• H311-A305 - to 1 MB RAM Upgrade £30 

• R312-A305/31Q - to 2MB RAM Upgrade £85 

• R412-A41 0/1 - to 2MB RAM Upgrade £25 

• R413-A420/1 - to 4MB RAM Upgrade £50 

• R414-A410/1 - to 4MB RAM Upgrade £75 

• RBI G-A41Q/1 - to 8MB RAM Upgrade £399 

• RB20-A420/1 - to 8MB RAM Upgrade £375 

• R840-A440/1 - to SMB RAM Upgrade £31 5 

• A50QO - to 2MB additional RAM Upgrade £82 


Desk Top Publishers 


Acorn's Archi DTP Package 

£69 

• Equasor £39; • Expression-PS 

£19 

Impression 2 DTP Pack 

£123 

Impression Junior 

£65 

Impression Business Supplement 

£39 

impression II Borders Disc 

£19 

Ovation DTP 

£85 

Desk Top Thesaurus 

£18 


Archi Wordprocessors 


Pendown Archi 

£48 

Easi writer 

£115 

Pendown Plus 

£68 

EasiWord 

£45 

Pipedream Spell 
Checker 

£40 

Prime Word 

£52 

Graphic Writer 

£20 

Wordz 

£85 


DATABASES 


Flexible 

£69 

Multi store v2,01 

£99 

Knowledge Organrser£42 

Pinpoint 

£65 

Magpie 

£40 

Pinpoint Junior 

£23 


Eureka 


SPREADSHEETS 

£99 Schema 


£89 


BUSINESS GRAPHICS 

Gam ma Plot £39 Sag map lot £39 

INTEGRATED PACKAGES 

• Pipedream3 £116 • Pi pad ream 4 £146 

• Desktop Office - Database, Graphs & 

Charts, Wordprocesso r Spreadsheet. 
Communications £69 

• Desktop FoJro - Word processor, Desktop 

& Interactive Publishing. Ideal for school £59 

• Acorn Advance package £99 


-d/Sales: 0S82 74 55 55 Sales/Inquiries: 0582 48 77 77 










NEW Special 

Finance Deal 


Simply plug 
and play " 


• Multimedia Expansion 

• Multimedia Expansion + 16 bit SCSI 


Now everyone can afford an Archimedes 
Micro with Watford Electronic s up to 
60 months instant credit facility, 

(Please telephone 0582 74 55 55 for details) 


Watford's advanced interface allows IDE drives to work on 
any Archimedes machine, speeds in excess of SCSI 
devices can be obtained at a fraction of the cost of a SCSI 
drive. 

Up to four drives are supported by the IDE filing system 
IDEFS, up to two drives can be attached to each expansion 
card, up to four cards can be inslalled in a machine. 

A powerful security feature has been provided with the two 
unique commands rfDELock and TDEUnloek, ideal for 
educational establishments where hacking or tempering 
may be prevalent that may lead to loss of data. Once 
locked, the configuration can not be changed until a secret 
password is used. The MDEForm Write Protecl option is 
particularly useful in conjunction wilh 'IDELock as it will 
prevent any unauthorised deletion of dala. 

By an innovative use of on-hoard memory, the card will 
rem ember its configuration, even if moved to another slot or 
even a different machine, this afso includes the unique 
security features. 

Hardware 

« Supports proposed ANSI ATA (IDE) specification 

* Fast 16 hit MEMO interface interrupt driven So support 
background disc operations 

* 5 Mbytes per second peak transfer rate 

* Up to two drives (master and slave) per card 

* Multiple cards per machine (up to four) 

Software 

* All software supplied in ROM 

* Filing system IDEFS' 

* Desktop filer with drive ready detection and disc name 
under icon 

* IIDEForm, WIMP based configuration and formatting 
software 

* Drives can be individually write protected 

* Power saving standby modes supported with 
configurable timeout 

* Drives can be used without translation in native mode for 
minimum overhead 

* ilDEFSDisk, creates PC emulator hard discs 


With this interface it is possible to connect almost 
any 5.2573.5'* disc drive with its own power supply 
to the Archimedes. Upto 4 disc drives can be 
connected. Fully Buffered Board. NO SOLDERING 
is involved. Supplied complete with necessary lead 

Price £21 

Back Plate Extension 

• A 300/400 El 5; * A3QG0 £14 


Watford's easy to instai, Jow cost, high 
performance, revolutionary IDE Hard Cards 
for the A300 & A400 series Archimedes. 

ADA 0800 30Mb 19mS £195 

ADA 0890 60Mb 18mS £299 

ADA 0670 80Mb 18mS £309 

ADA 0680 120Mb £405 


{All above Hard Cards can be used as 
Removable Hard Drives, ideal for Military 
and Education use.) 


Simply The Best 


Using this simple data link, it is possible to solve all 
your BBC to Archimedes data transfer problems. 
The kit is supplied with a disk, and the necessary 
cable to connect the two computers. 

• Rise OS £ Version £15 • Rise OS 3 Version £16 
(P.S. For A3G0Q Serial Upgrade (£19) required) 


Here ills at last - the all new Mark 2 version 
of Watford's highly acclaimed ARM 3 
processor board for the Archimedes and now 
also the A300G series computers. Using the 
latest surface mount technology on a high 
quality four layer circuit board we have 
reduced the overall size to a mere 53mm x 
45mm, and the cost to only £145. Mk II 
upgrade will increase the speed of your micro 
by a factor of 3 to 6. 

Any competent A 300 or A40G/1 series micro 
owner can fit the upgrade himself, as we 
provide full fitting instructions and a special 
ARM chip extraction tool. However for A3000 
micros and those not wishing to perform the 
upgrade themselves, we will collect, upgrade 
and return your micro by courier service, at an 
additional cost of £24. 

(A300 and old A440 series owners please note 
- you will need to upgrade to MEMC1A for 
ARM3 to work.) 

RRP £249 


» 3.5" External Drive £95 * Monitor Stand £15 

• Technical Manual £39 * Serial Upgrade £19 

* A3000 Dust Cover £5 * Micro+monitor cover £9 

* Acorn Carrying Case for A 3000 £1 0 

* A300Q User Port/Midi Upgrade Card £44 

• A3000 User/Ana logue/IIC I/O Card £38 

• A3000 External Podule Case £1 5 


A3G0/A400 Internal IDE Drive 

Part No. Capacity Access Speed Price 
ADA 0520 44Mb 28mS £189 

ADA 0550 80Mb 17mS £239 

ADA 0530 100Mb 16mS £259 

ADA 0570 200Mb 1 5mS £369 

ADA 0080 330Mb 15mS £599 

All above 3.5" Drives are supplied complete with 
Controller Card & cable for use with 
A 30Q/A4 00/A500 series machines. 

AAA 0300 External Case & PSD for A3000 £85 

AEA 1060 Archi IDE Hard Disc Podule only E89 


This NEW versatile I/O Card from Watford, fits inside 
the A3Q0Q and includes an Analog to Digital Converter, 
a User Port, and an InterlC (IlC) connector. 

The card allows many of the peripherals developed for 
the BBC to be used with the Archimedes A3000. The 
ADC and User Port have the same pin out and 
connectors as the BBC computers. 

Extensive RISC OS software is supplied lo provide BBC 
OSBYTE calls for support of the ADC and User Ports, 
including the BASIC keyword ADVAI.. The software 
provides extended RISC OS support for separate 
interrupts from both the ADC and User Ports, permitting 
easy interrupt driven operation. 

The card is provided with all the software in ROM and is 
automatically loaded when the machine is turned on. 

Peripherals connected to Ihe ports can obtain up to 
500mA of power at +5V. A fuse is fitted to the card to 
protect the A30G0 from damage arising from accidental 
short circuit of the power output. 

Features 

* An 8 bit User Port with a slandard 20 way IDC 
connector, compatible with the User Port on the BBC 
computers and the Archimedes I/O Podule. 

* A TO bit Analog to Digital Converter with a standard 
15 way D type connector, compatible wilh the ADC 
on the BBC range of computers and the Archimedes 
I/O podule. 

* An InterlC (110) Port with a 5 pin DIN socket to 
connect the A300Q to external IlC devices, 


A5G0G Internal IDE Drive 

ADA 1030 80Mb 17mS 

ADA 0940 100Mb l6mS 

ADA 0950 200Mb 15m5 

ADA 0580 330Mb 15mS 


Special Offer £125 


A5000 2nd Internal IDE Hard Drive 

ADA 1040 80Mb 17mS £1 

ADA 0960 100Mb 16mS £2 

ADA 0970 200Mb 15mS ££ 

ADA 1010 330Mb 15mS ££ 


BBC B Econet Kit £42 

Master Econet Module £40 

Archimedes Econet Module £40 

A302 0/4000 Econet Module £49 

Acorn A4 Econet Module £50 

Arc h i mede s Ethe rn e t Card £1 39 

A3020/4QQO Ethernet Card £1 79 

AUN/Levei 4 Preserver £379 

Econet S tarter Kit £137 

(P.S. Full range of Network Accessories/Software/ 
Site Licences available. Telephone for details.) 


A 3 000 External IDE Drives 

ADA 0780 44Mb 28m$ 

ADA 1020 80Mb 17mS 

ADA 1050 100Mb 15mS 


Eliminates need to have a User port in 
A3000/305/31 0/400/540 when using Concept 
Keyboard. £28 


Slate of the art. 4 layer internal IDE Hard Cards for 
the A3000. Software supplied in. On-board ROM. 


Leasing finance at very attractive 
rates now available to Businesses 
(subject to status), Schools, 
Colleges, Universities, Government 
Depts. and Local Councils, 


30Mb 

60MB 

80Mb 

120Mb 


1 9mS 
18MS 
18mS 
16mS 


» A4 Standard Pack £89 Primary Pack 

• A3 Standard Pack £94 Primary Pack 

• Designer Pack A4 £1 04 A3 D Pack 
» Universal 2010 Keyboard A3 

• Universal 2010 Keyboard A4 


Supplied ready assembled. No soldering required. 
Simply plug into the allotted space, 


Hi-Speed, Low Cost 
Archi Hard Disc Drive 


Archimedes External Disc 
Drive Interface 


\ ARM 3 Turbo Card Mklt 

h \ 


Archi to BBC Serial Link IVfk 2 


A3000 Accessories 


A3000 I/O Card 
(User, Analogue & IlC) 


Network Accessories/Software 


Internal Hard Disc Drives 
for A3000/A3010 


\ Cortian CKAI Interface 


Concept Keyboards 


Credit Card/Sales; 0582 74 55 55 Salea/lnquiries: 0582 48 77 77 


\ Acorn Multimedia 


8 

\ Archi IDE Hard Cards 

wL \ _ 










BBC Education Software 


A vous la France 

Au restaurant/Accident 
de route 

Bofougne and oh les 
Computer control 
Computers at work 
Espana Viva 
Folks Tales 
Geordte Racer 
Hall of Mirrors 
Letters and pictures 
Make a wildlife garden 
Maths with a story 1 
Maths with a story 2 
Puncman 1 & 2 
Puncman 3 & 4 
Puncman 5, 6 & 7 
Fun School 3 (Under 5) 
Fun School 3 {5-7} 

Fun School 3 {Over 7) 


French programs for 
beginners £29 

French games for 
1 2 years + £26 

French program for 
beginners £26 

Program simulating 
computer control £26 
Primary education 
program £17 

Spanish educational 
programs £20 

Listening and reading 
for ages 7+ £22 

Look and read for 
ages 7+ £22 

Practice word & 
number skills £22 
Educational programs 
for 6-8 years £15 

Explore wildlife/wea- 
t her/garden growth £22 
Primary level maths 
programs £20 

4 further maths 
programs £20 

Learning Punctuation 
(7-13 years} £15 

Learning Punctuation 
(8-14 years) £15 

Learning Punctuation 
(8-15 years) £15 

Varied range of 
Education subjects £17 
Varied range of 
E ducaticn subj e cts £1 7 
Varied range of 
Education subjects £17 


Archi Educational Software 


* 10 out Of 10 

Early essentials £20 

* 10 out of 10 

English £20 

* 10 out of 10 

Maths £20 

* Animated Alphabet 

(3-6 yrs) £21 

* An Eye for 

Spelling £31 

* Arc venture 

(8-12 yrs) £29 

* Best Four 

Adventure £34 

* Best Four 

Language £34 

* Best Four Maths £34 

* Bookbinder £43 

* Bookstore - 

Primary £35 

* Bookstore^ 
Secondary £35 

* Britain since 

1930 s £26 

* Bumper Disc £14 

* Bumper Disc 2 £14 

* Crafts hop 1 £19 

* Craftshop 2 £19 

* Converta-Key £1 6 

* Data Word £16 

* Desktop Stories £35 

* DigiSim £35 

* Dream Time 

(5-7 yrs) £23 

* Export, Trade & 

Industry £34 

* Farm (5-7 yrs) £19 

* Fleet Street Phantom 

(9-13 yrs) £25 

* Fun School 3 Red 
(up to 6 years) £17 

* Fun School 3 Green 
(6-8 years) £17 

* Fun School 3 Blue (8 

years +) £17 


Gate Array Teaching 
System £68 

Glimpse Clip Art 
Utility (7-1 6 yrs) £8 
Highlighter 

(6-16 yrs) £42 

Investigating 
Maths £34 

Jigsaw £19 

Kid Pix £34 

Linkword French £32 
Linkword German £32 
Linkword Spanish £32 
Making of the UK £35 
Mapping Skills £25 
Map venture 
{9-13 yrs) £24 

Medieval Realms £35 
Microbugs £24 

Money Matters £16 
Nature Park Adven- 
ture (7-9 yrs) £27 
Number in the 
Nat. Curr, £34 

Numerator £60 
Podd £23 

Picture Book £16 
Recall (6-13 yrs) £39 
Seliardore Tales £24 
Snippet £36 

Space Mission 
Mada (9-1 3 yrs) 

Sting of the Dump 
(9-13 yrs) £22 

Time Traveller £31 
Victorians £29 

Viewpoints 
(9-12 y rs) £33 

Wizard's Revenge 
(7-10 yrs) £17 

Worldmaker £46 
World Map Study £59 
Worst Witch 
(7-10 yrs) £25 


Archimedes Software 


GRAPHICS 

3D Construction Kit £39 
Arc Light £46 

ARCtist £19 

ARCliculate £19 

Art Works £129 

Atelier £60 

Autosketch EL £65 

CADet (CAD) £129 
Clip Art Set 1 £28 

Clip Art Set 2 £28 

Concept Designer £23 
Craffshop 1 & 2 £28 

Euclid 2 £50 

Graph Box £59 

Graphbox Professional £107 
HotLink Presenter £40 
Illusionist £69 

Kermit £46 

Mogul £17 

PC AD Educ. £395 

Pro Artisan £70 

ProCAD £439 

Prime Art £59 

Render Bender 2 £79 

Revelation 2 £80 

Titler £119 

Tween £29 

GAMES 

Air Supremacy £17 
Apocalypse £14 

Arcade 3 Compilation £12 
Battletank £10 

Black Angel £27 

Boogie Buggy £14 

Break 147 + Supa Pool£19 
B ughunter in Space £ 1 2 
Cataclysm £19 

Caverns £10 

Champions £25 

Chess 30 £16 

Checks Away £27 

Compendium £32 

Chocks Away Extra £14 
Chuck Rock £18 

Conqueror £15 

Cyber Chess £38 

Cycloids £20 

Demon's Lair £21 

Ego Replan 4 £— 

Elite £33 

Enter the Realm £19 
E-Type Compendium £20 
E-Type Designer £13 
Fervour £35 

Galactic Dan £19 

Gods £24 

Grievous Bodily Arm £19 
Hero Quest £25 

Holed Out Designer £13 
Holed Out Golf Comp £20 
Interpreter 2 £26 

Iron Lord £15 

Jahangir Khan Squash£19 
Lemmings £20 

Oh no more Le mmings£1 5 
Lost Temple POA 

Lotus Turbo Challenge£19 
Mad Prof Marian i £17 
Masterbreak £16 

Man at Arms £14 

Mahjong Patience £15 
Manchester United II £19 
Nebullus £21 

Nevryon II £20 

Omar Sharif's Bridge £23 
Pandoras Box £ia 
Pipe Mania £17 

Play It Again Sam £- 
Populous £23 

Pysanki £14 


Quazer £10 

Real McCoy 2 £23 

Real McCoy 3 £22 

Red shift £14 

Return to Doom £16 

Repton 3 £14 

Saloon Cars Deluxe £27 

Sim City £22 

Spitfire Fury £22 

Superior Golf £14 

Superpool + Break 147E22 
Swiv £19 

Talisman £12 

Tech end ream £20 

Trivial Pursuit £22 

Twin World £15 

U.UVI. £23 

Virtual Golf £29 

White Magic 2 Eis 

Worldscape £16 

XFire £19 

Zelanites £23 

Miscellaneous 

Ancestry £59 

Arccomm 2 £38 

Arcierm 7 £64 

Armadeus Sound £60 

Avante Garde Fonts £23 

Battle Chess £25 

BBC DFS Reader £6 

Broadcaster Loader £65 

Chameleon £34 

Chart Well £25 

Chatter £34 

Compression (CC) £38 

Craftshop 1 £27 

Craftshop 2 £27 

Desk Edit 2 £29 

Equasor £38 

FlexiFile £97 

Genesis £10 

Genesis Plus £68 

Genesis 2 £99 

Investigator 2 £22 

Magpie 2 £42 

Notate £42 

Numerator £66 

Pin Point £65 

Polyglot £16 

Presenter 2 £29 

P resenter Story £ 1 45 

Rainforest £17 

Revelation 2 £95 

Rhapsody in Blue 2 £45 

Score Draw £46 

Show Page £127 

Speech! £1 5 

The Victorian £17 

TimeTabler £499 

Toolkit (Clares) £35 

Touchtype £40 

Tracker £39 

Tu rbo Driver BJ 1 0E £42 

Type Studio £43 

Vox Box £46 

Wimp Programmer's 
Toolkit £16 

WorldScape £17 

LANGUAGES 
Desktop C £199 

Macro Assembler £40 

Robo Logo £69 

BASIC Compiler £77 

Logotron Logo £45 

Rise BASIC £120 

Rise FORTH £110 

Cambridge Pascal £95 


BBC/Master Games 


Acornsoft Hits 1 £10 

Acornsoft Hits 2 £10 

Air Supremacy £10 
Play It Again Sam 1 £10 
Play It Again Sam 2 £10 
Play It Again Sam 3 £10 
Play It Again Sam 4 £10 
Play It Again Sam 5 £10 
Play It Again Sam 6 £10 
Play ft Again Sam 7 £1 0 
Play It Again Sam 8 £10 


Sim City £10 

Superior Collection 1 £10 
Superior Collection 2 £10 
Play It Again Sam 9 £10 
Play It Again Sam 10 £10 
Play It Again Sam 11 £10 
Play It Again Sam 12 £10 
Play It Again Sam 13 £10 
Play It Again Sam 14 £10 
Play It Again Sam 15 £10 
Play It Again Sam 16 £10 


Silicon Vision 
Archimedes Software 


Arc-PGB 

Arc-PCB Schematics 
Excel Ion DR ILL 
SolidCAD 
SolidsRENDER 
SuperDUMP 
RiseBASIC Compiler 
RoboLOGO 
Shareholder Pro 


Arc-PCB Pro £169 
GerberPLOT £49 
Power ROUTER £125 
FilmMAKER £55 
SolidTOOLS £169 
SuperPLOT £17 

RiscFORTH Comp £66 
DataVislon £66 

Payroll Manager £66 


TEX EPROM ERASERS 


Over erasure of EPROMs very rapidly turns them 
into ROMs! 

The TEX erasers operate following the manufac- 
turers specifications to give the maximum possible 
working life by not erasing too fast. 

* ERASER GT - Deluxe version erases up to 

8 chips. Has automatic safety cut-off to switch 
off the UV lamp when opened. £36 

* Spare UV tubes. £12 


m 


Archi Real-Time Digitiser 


Now supplied with NEW RISC OS Version 
Software 

Watfords’ Archimedes Video Digitiser is the most 
sophisticated digitiser ever designed for a micro. It 
provides a fast and flexible means of capturing 
images from a video camera or recorder for display 
and manipulation on the Archimedes range of 
Micros. Off-air televison signals may also be 
digitised via a video recorder or TV tuner. Please 
write for further details. 

Price £75 

A Set of Colour Filters for colour image grabbing 
using a video camera £1 6 


Vision Digitiser 


Working in real time, the Vision Digitiser is 
available in either monochrome or colour 
versions with a software upgrade to colour. 
Create high quality images simply by 
connecting the digitiser to a PAL video 
source, such as a camcorder, video or digital 
camera. Includes powerful RISC OS 
software. 

Mono Vision Digitiser £44.00 
Colour Vision Digitiser £74.00 


2 74 55 55 Sales/Inquiries: 0582 48 77 77 






Antistatic Lockable Disc 
Storage Units 




These top quality 3.5 :i Double sided. 80 Irack, are at- 
tractively finished in BBC beige, They are supplied 
complete with all cables and a Unities Disc. 

Type Description 

Oise Drive without PSU 

* CLS35: Single Disc Drive, 400 K £59 

• CLD35: Twin Disc Drives, 8Q0K £109 


1^. Acorn & Watford DFSs 

* Watford sophisticated DFS ROM 

£16.00 

• Watford DFS Kit complete 

£49.00 

* DFS Manual (comprehensive) 

£6.95 

* Acorn DNFS ROM 

£17.00 

* Acorn ADFS ROM only 

£25.00 

* Acorn 1772 DFS ROM Kit 

£49.00 

* Acorn DFS Kit complete 

£48 

Watford's Mkli 1772 


Single/Double Density DFS 


* ms - holds up to 50 525* discs £4,95 

* M85 - holds up to 95 5. 25” discs £6.95 

* M25* - holds up to 25 3,5” discs £4.95 

* M50 - holds 50 3,5" discs £6.50 

* Ml 00 - holds 100 3. 5" discs £6.99 


* M10 - holds 8 of No. 10 Data Cartridges!:! 5 
* Not lockable 


Disc Plonker 
Rack 


When using ones micro, 
there Is a tendency to have 
more than one Disc on the 
desk. This exposes them to 
the hazards of fingerprints, 
scratches, dust, coffee and 
an untidy desk. Why not protect your valuable data 
from all these hazards with the help of our 
extremely handy and low cost DISC PLONKER 
rack. Holds up to eight 5.25* discs. 



3M - Diskettes 


Lifetime warranty on 3M Discs 

* 10 x 5.25” S/S D/D AQT (744) £5 

• 10 x 5 25” D/S D/D 40T (745) £5 

• 10 x 5.25” S/S D/D 80 Track (748) £6 

* 10 x 5.25 ” D/S D/D BO Track (747) £7 

* tO x 5.25" 1.6M D/S D/D High Density for IBM 

XT and AT £8 

• 10 x 3.5” S/S D/D 40/80 Track £6 

• 10 x 3 5” D/S D/D 40/80 Track £6 

* 1 0x3.5 ” Double Sided High Density £ 1 0 


Top Quality Diskettes 


Watford J s life time guaranteed disc are supplied 
complete with self stick labels & plastic library 


case. 

• 10 x M3 3.5” D/S D/D SO Track £6 

• 10 xM9 3.5” D/S High Density £10 

% 10 x M4 5.25" S/S D/D 40 Track £5 

m 10 x M5 5.25" D/S D/D 40 Track £5 

• 10 xM7 5.25" D/S D/D 80 Track £6 

• 10 xM8 5.25" D/S H/D Hi Density £9 


Special Bulk Offer Discs 


(Lifetime warranty on Discs) 

BULK PACK DISCS in lots of 100 

S/S D/S D/S 

Type 40T 40T SOT 

* Without Sleeves 5,25" £25 £30 £35 

* With Sleeves 5.25" £28 £33 £3B 

* 3.5" D/S D/D £21 for 50 £39 for 100 

* 3.5" D/S H/D £40 for 50 £75 for 100 


Disc Drive Power Leads 


Supply from BBC power supply to standard Disc 
Drive Connection: Single £3.00: Dual £3,75 


Disc Drive Interface Leads 


BBC to Disc Drives Ribbon Cable 
Single £4 Twin £6 


Disc Drive with PSU 

* CS35: Single Disc Drive, 4GGK £82 

* CD35: Twin Disc Drives, BOOK £126 

(P.S. CS35 is supplied m a twin case with a 
blanking plate to enable easy expansion to a dual 
drive at a later stage) 



• CDPIVT 800$ Twin 5.25", BOOK Double 
sided 40-80 track swltchabie disc doves mounted 
in an attractively finished Beige colour plinth for the 
BBC B & Master 128K micros, Supplied complete 
with integral power supply, cables and Utilities disc. 
The mains switch with neon On/Off light indicator, 
and the two 40/80 track switches are mounted on 
the front panel for ease of use. 

£150 

• DP35 800 Same as above except, one disc 
drive is a 5.25" and the other is 3.5". 

£145 



DLC1 - Holds 5 X 3,5 Discs, £1 .50 

DLC2 - Holds 10 X 3.5” Discs. £1.90 

DLC3- Holds 5 x 5.25" Discs. £1.60 

DLC4 - Holds 10 x 5,25" Discs. £2,00 


Disc Albums 


Attractively finished in leather-look PVC Vinyl 


DW1 - 

Holds 6 x 3.5” Discs 

£2.50 

DW2 - 

Holds 6 x 5.25“ Discs 

£3.00 

DW3 - 

Holds 20 x 5,25” Discs 

£3.50 

DW4- 

Holds 40 X 3.5" Discs or 



5.25* Discs 

£4.50 


Cleaning Kits 

5.25 M Disc Cleaning Kit 

£4 

3. 5“ Disc Cleaning Kit 

£4 

PC Cleaning Kit 

£7 

Professional PC Cleaning Kit 

£12 

Aerosol Dust Spray Can 

£3 

Servisol Foam Cleaner Can 

£3 

Antistatic Aerosol Spray 

£3 


Many of our customers have wanted to use our 
superior DDES and Acorn A DFS together. Now our 
Mk II DOFS Board with its 1772 Disc Controller, 
has been adapted to allow the use of Acorn ADFS 
as well, tt also has all the commands of the Acorn's 
1772 DFS r plus many more added features. 

* Complete Kit Special Price £44 

* DDFS Manual (No VAT) £6,95 


Quality Disc Drives from 
Watford 


Ait our Disc Drives are Double Sided and wifi 
operate in both Single and Double Density modes. 
Ail 5.25 " Disc Drives are 40/80 track switchabie 
For ease of use , the switches are front mounted. 
Follow the trend with a Watford plinth. (Turn to the 
6th page of our advert for the Plinths). 

P.S. All our 5.25” Disc Drives with PSU are 
compatible with the Compact Micro. Alt you require 
is our special Compact Disc Drive cables designed 
by us. 

“Test Bureau Approved for Use in 
Education^ 




Our Disc Drives conform to BS415 


Type 

► CLS400S; 

► CLD800S: 

► CS40QS: 

* CD8G0S: 


Description 

Disc Drive without PSU 

Single, 40/80 track 400K 
Double sided Drive £75 

Twin, 40/80 track, 800K 

Do u bfe sided D rives £ 1 3 8 


Disc Drive with PSU 

£85 
£149 


Single, 40/80 track, 400K 
Double sided Drive 


Twin, 40/80 track, 800 K 
Double sided Drives 


Credit Card Hotline: 
0582 74 55 55 


\ \ 

I Credit Card/Sales: 0582 74 55 55 Sales/Inquiries: 0582 48 77 77 











Microvitec Monitors 


* 1431 - standard Resolution #£ 175 

* 1451 - Medium Resolution #£215 

* Cub30D0 Medium Res for 

A300G #£195 

* D u st C o ve r for SUIicrov itecs £5.50 

* Touch tec 501 Touch Screen £239 

# 3 years parts & labour warranty 


Multiscan Monitors 


Eizo T240i 
Bzo F340S-W 
EiZO F5501-W 
Eizo T560iT 
EizoF560i-W 
Eizo T660LT2CF 
NEC 2A-M 
NEC3FG 
NEC 4FGe 
NEC 5FG 
NEC 6FG 


£433 

£625 

£899 

£1345 

£1195 

£1899 

£274 

£360 

£517 

£87? 

£1739 


Panasonic Cl 381 £199 


Cl 381 LR 
Taxan 787 
Taxan 787LR 
Taxan 789LR 
Taxan 795-PC 
Taxan 875 tLR £739 
Taxaniiso £1699 
Taxan 

1095LR-20 n £1699 


£270 

£215 

£239 

£289 

£465 


Printer Leads 


• BBC Centronics 4 H £5; 6' £6 

• Arch i Parallel 2m £5; 5m £9; 10m £13 

• PC Parallel 2m £5; 5m £9; 10m £13 

*25 pin D Mate/Male 2m £5; 5m £10 

• Centronics Double Ended 4' £5; 6' £6 

5m £10; 10m £14 

• RS232 Leads Various EPOA 


integrex Ink Jet 
Printers 


* Paper Roll for Integrex 132 

* BBC Screen Dump Software 

► Colour Cartridge 

► Black Cartridge 

► 1O0 A4 QHP transparencies 

► Colour Jet 2000 

► Betajet InkJet Printer 

► Betajet Cut Sheet Feeder 

► Integrex Colourjet Series 2 

► Auto Sheet Feeder for Series 2 


Laser Printers 


All Laser printers (excluding HP Lasers) 
include 12 Months On-Site maintenance 


Citizen Printers 


Panasonic monitors carry 2 years on- 
site maintenance warranty 


Aries AlphaScan 
\ Monitor 


Its multiscan circuitry provides 
automatic adjustment for frequencies 
between 31 and 56KHz horizontal and 
43 and 70Hz vertical. Its G.28mm dot 
pitch high resolution tube provides 
super sharp text graphics, while a high 
speed (70/72 Hz) refresh rate provides 
a flicker-free display easing the eye 
strain. The VI DC Adaptor supplied with 
the monitor allows high resolution 
operation in ail screen modes. £299 
• Ari es Alphasca n 1 7 " PI US £5 85 


Philips Monitors 


* BM7502 12” Hi res Green £88 

* CM8833 1 4“ Med. Res Colour £195 

* Dust Cover for Philips 

Monitors £6 

* Spare Monitor Leads (various) £7 


VI DC Enhancer 


Star Printers 


Printer 

CSF 

Ribbon 

LG 15 

£190 

£135 

£5 

LC20 

£102 

£60 

£4 

LC1Q0C 

£126 

£65 

£9 

LC24-15 

£246 

£135 

£5 

LC24-1O0 

£143 

£69 

£5 

LC24-20 Mk2 £175 

£65 

£5 

LC24-200C 

£214 

£65 

£12 

LC200 C 

£151 

£65 

£12 

Star Jet 

£169 

£43 

£16 

XB24-20QC 

£324# 

£80 

£12 

XB24-25QC 

£389# 

£139 

£12 

ZA-200C 

£260# 

£89 

£12 

ZA-250C 

£324# 

£139 

£12 


Printer 

CSF 

Ribbon 

£181 

£59 

£6 

£235 

£59 

£6 

£320 

£89 

£8 

£395 

£115 

£8 

£577 

£115 

£3 


Our two unique VIDC add-on boards for 
the Archimedes cater for all VGA and 
Multiscan monitors and screen modes. 
The multimode software supplied, 
provides all the new modes for the 
selected monitor type, including the 
now standard Computer Concepts 
modes. With VGA monitor, you are no 
longer restricted to a few modes. A 
Desk Top application supplied on disc, 
allows new modes to be designed and 
existing modes to be modified for 
particular monitors. 

Super VGA VIDC Card: Its unique 
design allows the horizontal and vertical 
sync to be buffered and have the 
polarity changed under software 
control £35 

Multi Video VIDC Card: As above 
bu t f or M u ItiScan mo n i tors only . £ 1 9 


Printer 

CSF 

Ribbon 

£126 

£59 

£6 

£98 

£59 

£6 

£264 

£126 

£8 

£330# 

£126 

£8 

£267 

£126 

£8 

£144 

£79 

£8 

£215 

£89 

£8 

£126 

£79 

£8 

£269# 

£126 

£8 

£POA 


Brother HL4-PS Postscript 
Brother HL6- NEW - 
Brother HL10-PS 
Brother HL10-DV 
Brother HL10-DPS 
Canon LBP4 LITE 
Canon LBP4+ 1.5M RAM 
Canon LBP-8 Plus HER 
Canon LBP-8 IV 60GDPI 
Epson E PL-5000 
Epson E PL-5200 - NEW - 6ppm £565 
Epson E PL-7500 PS 
Epson EPL810Q 
Fujitsu VM600 
Fujitsu VM800 (Best Buy) 

Fujitsu VM6Q0E 
HP LaserJet IIISI 
HP LaserJet 1 1 ESI PS 
HP LaserJet 4 
HP LaserJet 4L - NEW - 
HP LaserJet 4M PS 
HP LaserJet 4$i 
HP LaserJet 4Si MX 1200 DPI 1 6ppm £3385 
NEC Silentwriler S62P PS 6ppm £995 
NEC Silentwriter S102 
NEC Si3entwiiter2 290 
NEC Silentwriter 290P PS 
OKI OL400E 


4ppm £974 
6ppm £469 
lOppm £1329 
lOppm £1149 
IGppm £1445 
4ppm £525 
4ppm £644 
8 ppm £1435 
8 ppm £989 
6ppm £472 


eppm £1139 
lOppm £920 
5ppm £539 
8ppm £535 
5ppm EPOA 
iSppm £POA 
16ppm £2469 
8ppm £1073 
4ppm £499 
Bppm £1449 
£2260 


6ppm £1075 
£1194 
8ppm £1469 
4ppm £449 
5ppm* £459 
5ppm T £594 
11 ppm" £919 
1 1ppm* £1294 
4 ppm £774 
5 ppm £499 


# Includes 12 months on-site warranty 

• Black Ribbons for Colour Printers £5 

* Serial 8K Lface LC1 0/1 5724/200 £52 

* 32K Buffer LC/XB24-1 0; 1 5; 200 £52 

• Star/ A rchi C olour Pri nier Drive r £ 1 5 


NEC Pinwriter Printers 


P22Q 
P32 
P62 
P72 
P90 

• Jetmate J40D £1 69; • Jetmate J80D £249 

• Black Ribbons P20; P32 £6 

• Ribbons P60/70/P90 Black £8: Coir £14 

• P6G/7G Colour Option Kit £59 

• CSF for P20 £59; P60 £89; P7G£89 


Panasonic Printers 


KX-P1123 
KX-P1170 
KX-P 1624 
KX-P1654 
KX-P1695 
KX-P2123M 
KX-P2124 
KX-P218QM 
KX-P2624 
KX-P2023 

# Includes 12 months on-site warranty 

• Du stcover fo r 80 colum n prrnte rs £6 

* Serial Interface for above Printers £46 

* Black Ribbons for PI 081 , 1 1 80, 1 1 24 £6 

• Brown, Blue or Red Ribbons for 

KX-P1 081/1 592/1 595/1695 £9 each 

• 32 K Buffer for above Printers £16 

Colour Kit for KX-P2180; KX-P2123 
and KX-P2124 £49 


Panasonic KX-P4410 
Panasonic KX-P4430 
Panasonic KX-P4451 
Panasonic KX-P4455 
Star LP-4 Post Script 
Star LS-5 

Star LS-5 EX (RISC Based) 5ppm £625 
Star LS-5 TT True Type+Mac 5ppm £775 
Star LP-8 Star (post)script 8ppm £1 1 30 
‘2 years on-site warranty 
H P Laserjet HIP 3 years on -site £ 1 50 

H P Laserjet 1 1 ISi 3 years on-$i ie £4 50 

HP Laserjet 4/4 M 3 years on-site £170 

Laser Toners 


Canon 2, 3 & 4 £52 
Canon LBP8-IV £75 
Epson GQ £12 
EPL 40/41/4300 £55 
EPL 71/7500 £117 
EPL 8100 £117 

Qume Crystal (3) £84 
Star LP4 £52 

Star LS5 £69 
Canon 8'Star LP8£59 


KX-P4420/50/55 £20 
KX-P44 10/30 £29 

NEC SWriter 
HP! I/D, llf/D 
HP HP, HIP 
HP4/4M 
Laserjet 4L 
OKI 01400/800 £18 
VM8O0 8K pages£99 


£84 

£60 

£54 

£72 

£05 


Laser RAM Upgrades 


Type 

IIP; HIP 
II & ISD 
LJ4/4M 
EPL4100 
KX4420/50i 


m 2M m 

£49 £80 £132 
£60 £96 £142 
£- £75 £175 8M/£279 

- £120 - 512K/£52 

£59 £89 £149 


NECS62/S102E99 £180 - 

Star LBP £139 £275 - 

Jet page Postscript Cartridge 

• HP 1 1 P/I I IP £225 • I1D&III £227 

Various Add-Ons 

• Laserjet Appletalk Interface £135 

• HP Adobe Postscript*- Cartridge £359 

• Pacific Page Postscript £259 

• HP Premier Font Collection £28 

• Laserjet Various Font Ctridges from £45 

• HP Postscript Module for LJ4 £270 

• Laserjet 4 Powered envelope feeder£l99 

• Jetdirect Ethernet Card for Laserjet 

ll!si/4/4Si £359 

• 500 Sheet paper cassette (3rd Bin) £205 

• H PI I P/I IIP Lower Cassette Tray £96 

• Canon LBP-4 Lower Cassette Tray £96 


120D+ 

£98 

Swift. 90C 

£198 

Swift 9X 

£185 

Swift 200 

£178 

PN-48 

£189 

Swift 240 

£200 

Swift 90 

£139 

Swift 240C 

£212 


• 2 years parts and labour warranty on all 
above Citizen Printers. 

• Swift 24 Ribbons: Black £4 Colour £13 

• Cut Sheet Feeder for 80 col. printers £75 

• Citizen 1 20D R i bbons £3. SO 

• A rch i Colour Printer 0 river £15 


Hewlett-Packard 

Printers 


DJ500 colour £355 Desk Jet 510 £245 

DJ 550 Colour £459 Desk Jet12O0C £1045 
DJ Portable £199 Deskwriter 550C £459 
Deskwriter 5G0C £349 PaintJet XL300+E1 765 
Quiet Jet plus £299 PaintJet XL30DPS £2620 

+ Includes 12 months on-site warranty 
3 years on-site maintenance available as follows: 
DeskJet & DeskWriter mono £55 

DeskJet & DeskWriter colour £65 

• Paintjet Cartridge Black £15; Colour £23 

• DJ Portable CSF £49; Carrying Casa £49 

Special Offer 

When you purchase any Hewlett Packard printer 
from us. you qualify for the following software 
offers: 

• Adobe Type Manager v2 £45 

• Designworks Software pack at £39 

• Lotus Organiser Software at £33 

Desk Jet 500 Accessories 

• Ink Cartridges Black £16; Colour £23 

• High Capacity Ink Cartridges Black £21 

• Ink Refill Double Pack (JetFlII) £10 

• Ink Refill High Capacity (JetFill) £16 

• Deskjet Turbo Driver £39 

• Archi - DJ550 Colour Printer Driver £1 5 

• Epson FX Emulation Cart.(500 mono)£45 

• IBM Proprinter Emulation Cartridge £59 

• WordPerfect Cartridge £89 

• DJ 500 Dust Covers £6 

• 636G 50 x T ransparencies A4 £40 

• 636J 50 x Glossy Paper A4 (also XL) £40 

• 630Z 50 x Cut She et Pape r A4 £ 1 5 

Plug fn Font Cartridges for DJ 500 

22706 B- Prestige. Elite, Line Draw £55 
22706C - Letter Gothic & HP Line Draw £56 
22707 P - P ropri nt Emulation Cart ridges £57 

HP Paintjet/XL Accessories 

• 630 P 200 Z-Fold paper 8.5 x 1 1 £14 

• 630G 50 Transpa rencle s 8 . 5 x 1 1 £39 

• 630S 50 Transp arenci es A4 £40 

■ 630Y 200 Cut Sheets 8.5x11 £14 

• 631Y 200 Cut Sheets A4 £18 


\ Fujitsu Printers 


ft B-1Q0 InkJet - HP Deskjet 
compatible 300dpt„ whisper-quiet & 6 
resident fonts #£159 

> B-20G InkJet - HP Desk Jet 
compatible 300dpi. Built in Cut Sheet 
Feeder. Optional 2nd Bin/Tractor 
available #£239 

» DL-1 150 Dot Matrix - 24 pin, 1 10 
col um n Colo u r OptiO na i £209 

» DL-1 ISOcolour Dot Matrix - 24 pin, 

1 1 0 column With colour option £235 

DL46GG £799 

DL58G0 £999 

DL125G coir £344 

£49 


• DL1250 £309 

• DL3600 £439 

• Joy writer £249 

• 8-100 Cut Sheet Feeder 

• B-200 2nd Bin Sheet Feeder 

• B-200 Tractor Unit 
B- 100/200 Ink Cartridges 
DL-1 100 Colour Upgrade 


£95 

£65 

£14 

£39 


• [ 

• DL-1 100 Ribbons Black £5 Colour £11 


55 Sales/ Inquiries: 0582 48 77 77 












Epson Printers 


Printer Labels 


Plotters 



Printer 

CSF 

Ribbon 

EX1000C 

£428 

£- 

£6 

FX870 

£273 

£47 

£4 

FX1170 

£339 

£69 

£6 

LQ100 

£148 

£- 

£4 

LQ570+ 

£205 

£47 

£4 

LQ870 

£359 

£47 

£6 

LQ1060 

£585 

£155 

£6 

LQ1070 

£310 

£69 

£6 

LQ1170 

£434 

£69 

£6 

LQ2550 

£673 

£360 

£6 

LX10G 

£116 

£- 

£4 

LX400 

£94 

£69 

£4 

LX850+ 

£135 

£69 

£4 

LX 1050 

£203 

£125 

£6 

SQ370 

£409 

£59 

£23 

$G11 70 

£560 

£155 

£23 

SQ2550 

£669 

£- 

£23 

Stylus 800 

£244 

E— 

£10 


Epson RS232 Interface 

Standard £28: +8K Buffer £75 

• LQ 100 Tractor Feed £29 

• FX85Q/LG800/850 Tractor Feed £69 

• FX/L0 1 050 Tracto r Feed £85 

• LQ2500/2550 Tractor Feed £90 

• Dustcovers for 80 col printers £6 


Canon Bubblejet 
Printers 


BJ10EX 

Printer 

£156 

CSF 

£43 

2nd 

Bin 

Ink 

Cart 

£16 

BJ10SX 

£169 

£43 

- 

£16 

BJ20Q 

£249 

- 

- 

£16 

BJ230 

£299 

- 

- 

£16 

BJ300* 

£319 

£65 

£68 

£12 

BJ330* 

£369 

£110 

£79 

£12 

BJCflOQC £1299 

- 

- 

£15 

* BJ10EX/SX Jumbo Ink Refill pack 
(twice cartridge volume) 

£12 



The professional printer stand takes 
hardly more space than your printer. 
Due to the .positioning of the paper 
feed and re-fold compartments ie. one 
above the other, the desk space 
required for your printer functions is 
effectively halved. Its ergonomic 
design ensures smooth paper flow and 
automatic refolding. 

80 Column version, £18 

132 Column version £25 


Perspex Printer Stand 



Give your Computer System a touch of 
Class with our elegant, smoke finished 
Perspex Printer stand. 

80 Column version £14 

136 Column version £18 



24-Hour Credit Card Order Line 
(0923) 233383 or 250234 


• Optional Battery pack for BJ10EX/SX £33 
* includes 12 months on site warranty 


Professional Printer 
Stand 


Universal Printer 
Sharers 


Connect up to 4 Micros lo 1 printer or 4 
Printers to 1 Micro with our combined, 
Sharer/Changer swiich. boxes. 

Standard Low Cost Sharers 


Connects 

Serial 

Parallel 

• 2 to 1 

£10 

£10 

* 3 to 1 

£14 

£15 

• 4 to 1 

£19 

£20 

Professional Sharer Units 

Connects 

Serial 

Parallel 

• 2 10 1 

£15 

£16 

* 3 to 1 

£20 

£23 

• 4 to 1 . 

£30 

£34 


Auto Printer 


t Sharer Switch 

Connects 

Serial 

Centronics 

* 2 to 1 

£34 

£36 

• 4 to 1 

£52 

£53 

« B to 1 

- 

£85 


2S6K Multi Spooler 


These Parallel Auto printer sharer switches 
have built-in 256K Buffer. 

# 2 In, 2 out £125 • 4 In 2 out £139 
#8 In /I out £185 

(Cables for all printer switches are from £5 
each please specify the type required 
when ordering.) 




Compact Converter 
Unit 


Serial to Parallel & Parallel to Serial 


Listing Paper 
(Perforated) 


* 1 ,000 Sheets 9,5" x 1 V Fanfold £7 

* 2,000 Sheets 9.5 V x 1 1” Fanfold £1 1 

* 1 ,000 Sheets 9.5" x 1 1 NCR 2 

Part Fanfold £21 

* 1 .000 Sheets 1 5" x 1 r Fanfold £9 

* 2 ,000 Sheets 1 5” x 1 1" Fanfold £ 1 6 

* 1 .000 Sheets true A4 Fanfold 

Paper 70gms £1 1 

* 2,000 Sheets true A4 Fanfold 

Paper 7Ggms £21 

* 500 Sheets A4 8Ggms Bond £3.50 

(All our Fanfold paper is Micro 
perforated leaving a smooth clean 
edge when the tractor feed strips are 
detached). 


Cross Over 
Manual Switch 


2 ln/2 Out Parallel 

£29 

2 ln/2 Out Serial 

£28 

3 In/2 Out Serial 

£36 


Printer Ribbons & 
arious Dust Covers 


Dust 


Type Ribbons Covers 

BBC B/BBC Master 

- 

£6,00 

Archimedes Micro pair 

- 

£9.00 

Citizen 120D 

£3.25 

£6.00 

EX80G/100Q 

£6.00 

£6.00 

RX/ FX8 O/85/80O- , 'M X80 

£2.95 

- 

F X/MX/ R X 1 00/ 1 000 

£3.95 

- 

Kaga/T axa n K PS 1 0/8 1 5 

£6.00 

£6.00 

LQ4O0/5OO/55G/8OO/B5Q 

£5,50 

£6.00 

LQ1050/LQ2500 

£12.00 

£6,00 

LX4OO/80O/85O 

£3.50 

£6.00 

M1009/GLP 

£2.95 

£6,00 

NEC P2200 

£4,50 

£6.00 


Dust covers for most 80 column printers 
available at £6 each 


(On continuous fanfold backing sheet) 

1 ,000 90 x 36mm (Single Row} E6.00 

1 ,000 00 x 36mm (Twin Row) £6,25 

1 ,000 90 x 49mm [Twin Row) £7,50 

1,000 102 x 36mm [Twin Row) £6,75 

Laser Printer Labels on A4 Sheets 

3750 - 70 x 39mm (3 Rows x 1 0) £1 5.50 

2400 - 70 x 37mm, (3 Rows x S) El 5.25 


Listing Paper 
(Perforated) 


• 1 ,000 Sheets 9.5" x 1 1 " Fanfold £7 

• 2,000 Sheels 9.5” x 11" Fanfold £11 

* 1 ,000 Sheels 9.5" x 11” NCR 2 Part £21 

• T ,000 Sheets 15 n x 11" Fanfold £9 

♦ 2,000 Sheels 15" x 11" Fanfold £16 

* 1 .000 Sheels true M Fanfold 70gms £1 1 

* 2,000 A4 Fanfold Paper £19 

• 500 Sheels A4 80gms Bond £3.50 


Psion Series III 



Psion Series III Computer 

* Series 3 128K 

£155 

* Series 3 256K 

£179 

RAM Solid State Discs (5SD) 

* 128K 

£68 

• 512K 

£170 

* 1Mb 

£255 

Flash Solid State Disc (SSD) 

* 128K 

£34 

* 256 K 

£59 

* 512K 

£102 

* 1Mb 

£170 

• 2Mb 

£255 

Communications 

• Parallel Interface Link 

£25 

* RS 232 Serial Link for PC 

£58 

• RS 232 Serial Link for Mac 

£59 

Various 

• Mains Adaptor 9V AC 

£12 

• Spreadsheet 

£59 

• Professional Finance 

£42 

• Spelling Checker/Thesaurus 

£42 


Voltmace Joystick 


Delta 3B Single Joystick £10 

De I ta 3 B Twin J cystic ks £ 1 5 

Delta 14B Single Joystick £11 

Delta-Cat A mouse eliminator 
Joystick for the Arc h i mede s £24 

Analogue aircraft style yoke 
Joystick to run in the analogue port 
Of the BBC B & Master 128 £25 


Commander Joystick 


Features: 

* Direct connection to BBC Analogue 
input port - 

* Fully compatible with all BBC 
Joystick controlled games 
programmes, 

* Switch able springs allow selection 
of floating or centring operation. 

* Trim adjusters for both X and Y 
axes for fine centre adjustment. 

* Convenient stick mounted fire 
button with additional base buttons. 

Price: £15 


Beeb PC (BASIC) 


Designed for program authors to 
convert BBC programs to run on IBM 

PCs Price: £38 


• DXY110G £650 *DXY120Q £835 

• DXY 1 300 £1049 * SkeSchmale A4£349 
m Sketchmate A3 £495 

• Boland Plotter Fibre Tip Pens £7 JO 

• HP7440AU £665 * HP7475AU £899 

• HP 7570 A £POA • HP7575AU £2529 





Plinths for the SBC 
Master and A3000 


4 Way Mains 
istribution Socket 


4 way top quality mains trailing sockets. 
Supplied wired up with mains plug 
ready for use. Can be screwed to floor 
or wall if required. 

Very useful for tidying up all the mains 
leads from your peripherals. £9.50 


Aries Spike 
Cleaner Unit 


A 4 way mains distribution unit as 
above with a built-in Surge Arrester, 
providing protection for your 
complete Computer/Hi- Fi System £1 6 


* Single 490 x 310 x 105mm £14 

* Double 490 x310 x210mm £27 

* A3000 Single Plinth [very sturdy & 

precision made), has a slot on the 
left for the switch & cut out on the 
right for 3.5" Disc Drive £1 5 


Fitted in place of your normal mains 
plug, this device protects your 
equipment (and data from corruption), 
against mains high voltage transient 
spikes/surges caused by lightning or 
thermostats switching. 

Protection for only £8.50 


Available in 2 full A4 versions, desk 
resting and shelf clamping. Paper is 
held firmly by means of a plastic 
retaining ruler and a clip grip. 


* Desk Top £8: * Angle Poise £12 

Copy holders as 
above but with a 
operated, 
remote controlled 
cursor/ruler, (By hand 
or fool pedal.) (Batteries 2 x AA not 
included.) 

• Desk Top £15; • Angle Poise £20 


Surge Protector Plug 


Continued-* 


Credit Card/Sales: 0582 74 55 55 Sales/Inquiries: 0582 48 77 77 



















• Quest Mouse III & Quest Paint £39 

• Quest Mouse 111, Quest Paint, AMX 

Slop Press & Pagefont £59 

• Quest Mouse Ilf only £25 

• Quest Paint Software only £23 

• Quest Font Disc (22 Text Fonts) £15 

• Quest Mouse Mat (Red or Blue or 

Green please specify) £3 

• Conquest (Quest Paint Extension) 

ROM £24 

• Quest Coiour Dump Disc - This 
new software allows you to print 
direct from Quest Paint to your 

I nteg rex Colo ur P ri n te r £1 8 

(P,S. Quest Paint is not compatible 
with BBC Compact) 

Quest Paint is the winner of the BBC 
Acorn User 1 990 Award for the Best 
Art/Graphics software 


Mouse Cleaning Kit 




Archi Cordless Mouse 


Features 

* infra Red Signal Transmission 

* High Resolution 200 DPI 

* High Tracking Speed of 600mm/s up 

* Anti-static Silicon Rubber Coated 
Bail 

* Low Friction Teflon Footpads 

* Power - by two AAA size batteries 
(not included) 

* Automatic Standby Mode after 5 
minutes inactive 

» Aulo Power Shut-Down after 20 
minutes inactive . _ _ 

Price £29 


Quest - Tracer ball 


Award winning 
Wapping Editor 

The Wapping Editor from Watford 
Electronics represents a breakthrough 
in Desktop Publishing for the Beeb, 

The package includes a 64K ROM 
containing ALL the software needed to 
get into print fast; a very sophisticated 
graphics module, professional quality 
typesetting software, a word 
processor, a comprehensive font editor 
for designing your own typefaces, and 
a variety of printer dumps. This mouse- 
driven system is designed for the BBC 
B, the B+ and Master computers and 
wifi take full advantage of any 
Sideways and Shadow RAM that may 
be fitted- It will run under DFS, ADFS 
and Network filing systems and 
requires as a minimum just a single 40 
track drive. 

Wapping Editor Software Pack £39 
Wapping Editor plus Mouse £59 

(Wapping Editor only works with 
Master Compact if a Mertec Expansion 
box is fitted) 


Wapping Art Disc 


Over 25 OK of dip art to cut and paste 
into your Wapping Editor pages. 
Pictures include maps, transport, 
people, media, sport, games etc. 

Two Tati o’ screens for use with hi-res 


32K Shadow RAM/ 
Printer Buffer Card 
Expansion Board 


A MUST FOR WORD PROCESSING 
Simply plug the ribbon cable plug into 
the 6502 socket and gain a massive 
32K of extra RAM. 

* ‘VIEW" Wordprocessor users can 
now type in letters in SO columns and 
have up to 28 K bytes free - 5 times as 
much as normal. 

* In WQRDWISE (or WORDWISE- 
PLUS), preview in 80 columns with the 
full 24k of text in memory. This product 
is recommended as an ideal 


To obtain trouble free operation 
and prolong the life of your 
mouse, the high tech rodent 
requires regular cleaning. Our 
deluxe mouse cleaning kit is ideal 
for the purpose £3 


Archi Mouse 
Port Splitter 


Our handy little splitter unit eliminates 
the risk of damaging your micro due to 
constant plugging and unplugging of 
the mouse by allowing you to connect 
both, a joystick and a mouse 
simultaneously to your Archimedes, 

£15 


Mk III AMX MOUSE 


• AMX Mouse plus 

Super Art £39 

(Please specify for BBC Master or Compact) 

•AMX MOUSE ONLY £25 

• AMX SUPERART Package £20 

• AMX STOP PRESS - 

A Desktop publishing software. 
Works with Keyboard, Joystick 


or a mouse £1 8 

• PAGE-FONTS - Over 20 

Fonts for use with AMX 
Pagemaker £13 

•AMX DESIGN (ROM) £23 

•AMX EXTRA EXTRA £16 

• MOUSE MAT £3 


WE Mouse House 

• 



Treat your mouse to a cosy Mouse 
House. This handy little gadget solves 
the problem of where to store your 
mouse when it is having a rest. Made 
of sturdy plastic, the WE Mouse House 
attaches to the side of your computer, 
monitor, disc drive etc. 


An attractively finished, extremely 
reliable, mouse repfacement, input 
device. Requires very little desk space. 
Connects directly to your BBC B, BBC 
Master or Archimedes Micro. 



QT-20 Archimedes Version £26 


Archi Mk II 
Hand Scanner 


Watford's Mk II hand scanner has a 
maximum resolution of 400 dpi. The 
scanning width is 4". The sophisticated 
software is supplied in a 64K ROM, 
located on a standard single width 
expansion podule. As you scan a page, 
the image appears in the scanning 
window on the screen, scrolling up in 
real time. Other facilities include 
Cropping and scaling to any size 
including stretching and squashing in X 
and Y directions separately. Colour 
tinting, X and Y flip. Edge detection 
which turns solid objects into outlines, 
images can be printed on any printer 
supported by RISC OS. 

On-screen help is provided via the 
RiscQS interactive help facility, (Please 
write in for full technical details). 

AHS-4 Archi 300/400 Version £89 
AHS-3 Archi A300G Version £99 


OFFICE MASTER 


• CASHBOOK • FINAL ACCOUNTS 

• MAILIST • EASILEDGER - 

• INVOICES & STATEMENT 

All this for only £1 2 (Disc) 


OFFICE MATE 


• DATABASE • SPREADSHEET 
* BEEBPLOT 


Only £3 


Only £10 (Disc) 


and rotated A5 pages to ensure 
images are not distorted when printed 
out. £15 


Wapping Font Disc 1 


Sixteen additional fonts, including 
smaller version of Oberon and Daisy 
and two new sizes of the standard font 
for the Wapping editor. 

Also included are two Mode 0 screens 
containing giant ‘headline* fonts to cut 
and paste to create extra smooth 
headlines. 

Supplied complete with instructions. 

£12 


Wapping Font Disc 2 


This new addition to our Wapping 
range of DTP software provides you 
with additional 23 fonts for the 
Wapping Editor DTP pack. (80 track 
discs only). 3 


Archi A4 Scanner 



The 216mm scanning width can cope with 
both desktop scanning of single sheets, 
photographs, diagrams, etc., with its fast 
ten page automatic document feeder, but 
it can also detach from the feeder to 
become a convenient hand-held full page 
scanner for larger documents or pictures. 
Scanned image control can be freely 
adjusted in increments of 10 dots per inch 
from 100 up to 400 dpi resolution with 64 
levels of grey scaling. A built in shading 
controller and manual brightness control 
achieve optimum image clarity. 

Unlike some scanners, which use a red 
light source, the Watford scanner uses a 
yellow/green source which vastly 
improves the light/dark contrast, thus 
eliminating the effect where any red- 
based colours are faded down to white 
and so do not show up in the scanned 
image. 

Archi A4 Scanner £199 

Sheet Feeder for above £75 

Scanner + Sheet Feeder £269 


complement by Computer Concepts, 

Only E45 



• Increases your BBC Micro's ROM 
capacity from 4 to 16. 

• No soldering required. 

• Socket 14 takes two 6264 RAM 
chips. 

• Read protect to make RAM “Vanish ' 1 
allows recovery from ROM crashes, 

• Battery backup option for RAM 
chips. 

• Supplied ready to fit with 
comprehensive instructions. 

Price: Only £32 

Battery Backup fitted £35 
Battery Backup only £3 
1 6K Sideways RAM £8 

• Sideways RAM Utilities Disc for 
Solderless ROM Board. Includes the 
options to load and save ROM 
Images and the facility to use 
Sideways RAM as Printer Buffer. 

Only; £8 


Watford DATA DUCK 


Convert two single Disc Drives into 
one Dual Drive with this simple 
external unit (Suitable for Disc Drives 
with PSU. For Disc Drives without 
PSU, you will also require Watford 
Power Duck, see below). 

£14 

Watford POWER DUCK £8 


Sales/ Inquiries: 0582 48 77 77 \ \ \ \ 













Li 


ROM/RAM Card 



* No Soldering required to lit the 
board. 

* Compatible with BBC B 

* Total number of ROMs increased 
from 4 lo 8, 

* Up to 8 banks of sideways RAM 
(dynamic), 

PRICES' 

* ROM/RAM card with 32k 

DRAM £39 

* ROM/RAM card with 64k 

DRAM £52 

* ROM/RAM card with 128k 

DRAM £83 

OPTIONAL EXTRAS: 

* 16k plug-in Static RAM kit £B 

* 16k DRAM for Upgrade £13 

* Battery backup £3 

* Read and Write protect 

switches £2 each 

Complete ROM-RAM card with all 
options fitted £99 


ROM Cartridges for 
the BBC Master 

Will accept the larger Piggy 
Back ROMs like Interword, 
Quest, etc. 

* Twin £9; * Quad £14 


24-Hour Credit Card Order Line 
dial (0582) 74 55 55 


Sideways ROM 
ZIF Socket System 



Allows you to change your ROMs 
quickly and efficiently, without having 
to open the lid. The 21 F socket Is 
located into the ROM Cartridge’s 
position. It is very simple to install. No 
soldering required. Also included in the 
price is a plastic see through storage 
case with antistatic lining, which allows 
you to store 12 ROMs, £-| g 


Acorn Speech Synthesizer 
package complete, for the 
BBC B Microcomputer 

Special Offer £6 


User Port Splitter Unit 


Gone are the days when you had to 
plug and unplug devices from the User 
Port, This extremely useful little device 
allows you to connect two devices 
simultaneously to the BBC B & Master 
user port 

Excellent Value at £22 


View Printer Driver 
ROM 


View is a powerful word processor, but 
ft seriously lacks in terms of printer 
driver support. With the View Printer 
Driver ROM. the View users will find 
themselves in the realms of advanced 
word processing 

Price: Only £29 


Assorted ROMS 
BBC B/Master 


ACORN ADFS 

ACORN BASIC 2 plus User Guide 
ACORN DIMFS 
Acorn OS B+ 

Acorn OS 1 .2 
Beebmon 
Dump Out 3 

Graphics Extension Rom 

GXR-B 

GXR-B+ 

Logotron LOGO 
MASTER OS ROM 
Master ULA (47) 

Master ULA (60) 

Numerator- Arc hi 
Numerator- BBC 
Pendown ROM 
SERIAL ULA 
TED 

Video ULA 
1Mb OS ROM 

View 3.0 £45 Viewsheet 

Viewstore £36 Viewspell SOT 

InterBase £49 InterChad 

InterSheet £37 InterWord 

Mega-3 ROM £76 Spell Master 

Wordwise Plus 


Word -ft id 


This advance utilities ROM 
extends the power of your 
Wordwise plus ROM. 

Only £24 

(M B- Word Aid requires a Disc 
interface in your Micro) 


i 

BOOKS 

; 

Bl (No VAT on Books) 

15 Hr Wondp/ocessing BBC/View 

£6.95 

15 Hr Wardprocessing B8C/WW & WWf 

£6.95 

39 Hour BASIC (BBC Micro) 

£12.95 

1st Word Plus- Mastering 

£13.95 

1st Word Plus Ret. 2 Manual 

£10.00 

■ A30Q0 Technical Reference Manual 

£29.00 

A50OG Technical Reference Manual 

£- 

Acorn DTP A Guide to 

£17,00 

Advanced User Guide for BBC 

£10.95 

Archimedes 1st Step- Beginners Guide 

£9.95 

Archimedes Assembly Language 

£14,95 

Archimedes Basic V Guide 

£9.95 

Archimedes BBC Basic Guide 

£20 

Archimedes DTP Manual 

£10.00 

Archimedes Game Maker Manual 

£14.95 

Archimedes Operating System 

£14,95 

Archimedes Risc-Os Programmers 


Reference Manual 

£79.00 

Assembly Language Quick Ref. 

£21.95 

BBC B Micro User Guide 

£15 

Budget DTP on the Archimedes 

£12.95 

0 Big Red Book of 

£3.95 

C^Dabhand Guide 10 3rd Ed 

£16,95 

C Programming Lang. 2nd Edilfon 

£24.05 

DISC FILING SYSTEM (DFS) 


Operating Manual for BBC 

£5.95 

DTP on the Archimedes 

£12.95 

Epson RXfPX Printer Commands Revealed £5, 95 

File Handting for All 

£9.95 

FORTH on the BBC Micro 

£9.95 

Graphics on the ARM 

£14.95 

Impression - Dab Hand Guide 

£14.95 

Impression It - A Dabhand Guide 

£14.95 

ISO- PASCAL Reference Manual 

£9.95 

Master 512 Guide - Dabs Press 

£9.95 

Master Operating System 

£12.95 

Master Reference Manual - Advanced 

£10 

Mouse User Guide to BBC Micro - 


Ihe Complete 

£5.95 

Example Programs on Disc for above 

£4,95 

Mysteries of Disc Drives & DFS Revealed 

£4.95 

PASCAL Programming 

£10,95 

1 Rise OS Style Guide 

£9.95 

1 RISC I echnical Manual 260 pg 

£14,95 

Understanding Interword - 


A Beginners Guide 

£4.95 

View 3.0 User Guide 

£10 

Viewsheet User Guide 

£10 1 

Viewstore User Guide 

£10 

Wimp Programming for All 

£12.95 

Wimp Programming -A Beginner's Guide 

£12.95 ; 

H Spares for BBC Micro 1 

UHF Modulator 

£4 

Speaker £3; Speaker Grill 

£1 

Keys witches 

£1 

16MHz Crystal 

£2 

17.734 MHz Crystal 

£2 

32.768MHz Crystal 

£2 

Replacement 17 way Flexible 


Keyboard Connector 

£4 

BBC Master Power Supply 

£69 

BBC Master Keyboard 

£62 

BBC Master Casing 

£49 

Refurbished BBC B Spares 

BBC B Casing 

£13 

Clear Perspex Keystrip Holder 

£3 

BBC B Keyboard 

£35 

BBC B Power Supply 

£49 


| Spares for Archimedes | 

A3000 PSU £49; 

Disc Drive 

£59 

Controller V! DC £39; 

MEMO 

£29 

I/O Controller 


£39 

ARM 2 CPU 


£39 

A400 Disc Drive 


£59 

Fan Filter 


£6 

A300/400 PSU £89; 

Keystrip 

£5 

A300/4GG Keyboard 


£120 

A30O Disc Drive 


£89 


ACORN to PC 


Stop the Confusion! 

Do you have to use both Acorn 
computers and PC's? Would you like 
to use your Archimedes or A3000 in 
PC -emulation mode but are unsure of 
the new commands? 

Although Acorn machines (such as the 
BBC B, the Master, the Archimedes) 
are mainly used in education, most 
commercial computers use other 
operating systems, particularly MS- 
DOS. As a result school computer 
users are at a disadvantage when 
moving into business' computing. PCs 
and other commercial computers use 
MS-DOS as the operating system, so 
commands for formatting, copying, 
backing up. printing and the modem 
are not the same. Even file names are 
written differently! And did you know 
that there is one Acorn command 
which, if used in MS-DOS, wipes 
everything in the current directory? 

'ACORN TO PC’ enables you to 
change over painlessly. It shows 
clearly and quickly how, why and 
where the two systems (Acorn and 
MS-DOS) differ. As with a foreign 
language dictionary, you can use the 
book to transfer either way - from 
Acorn to MS-DOS, or from MS-DOS to 
Acorn, 

Price: £6-95 (No VAT) 

» Official orders accepted from 
government, educational 
establishments and PLCs, 

> Shop Hours; 9am to 6pm, Monday 
to Saturday. Late night Thursday 
until 8pm. Free customer car park. 

» Mall Order Inquiries: 9am to 6pm. 
Monday to Friday only 

> Technical Inquiries; 9.30am to 
5.00pm, Monday to Friday 


Carriage (incl. Insurance) Charges 


£2.00 
£5.00 
£7.00 
£2.00 
£2.00 

P.S. Many software packages qualify 
for the small item tariff 

For Next Day Working Day delivery 
service simply double the cost. All 
charges subject to VAT 

Above carriage charges apply to UK 
mainland only. On export orders, 
carriage is charged at cost. 



Watford 
Electronics Ltd 

Established 1972 
Mail Order & Showroom: 

Jessa House, Finway, off Dallow Road, Luton, LU1 1TR, England 
Tel: 0582 48 77 77 Tlx: 8956095 WATFRD Fax: 0582 488588 
Showroom Only: 

Jessa House, 250 Lower High Street, Watford, WD1 2AN, England 
Tel: 0923 237774 Fax: 0923 233642 

Offers and at! Items are subject to availability. Prices may have to change for reasons beyond 
our control. Specifications on products are correct at the time of going to press and given in 
good faith, but may have to change without notice. Please check suitability of peripherals with 
your system/5; before ordering. All trademarks are acknowledged. Goods are sold subject to 
our standard terms and conditions of sale and are available on request. GOODS ARE NOT SOLO 
ON TRIAL BASIS. E&GF. 

VAT: UK and EC customers; Please add 17,5% VAT to the total cost, including carriage. 


Credit Card/Sales: 0582 74 55 55 Sales/Inquiries: 0582 48 77 77 







F E 


E S 


• he range of TurboDrivers has expanded 
ipm to include versions for the Hewlett- 
■■■ Packard DeskJet and LaserJet range of 
printers, as well as the Canon bubblejet range . 
The latest release 3 versions are now fully 
RISC OS 3 . 1 compliant, offer new advanced 
features and are faster than ever before . 

The bottom line is that if you value your lime, the 
TurboDrivers are for you - they can render pages and give 
control back typically at between three and ten times faster 
than Acorn printer drivers or Ace PRODrivers. Indeed once 
the image has been rendered then the printing continues 
entirely in the background - as fast as the printer will go. 

This makes a large difference for just one page and an 
enormous difference if you are printing more than one copy 


* Full 24-bit colour support for Canon BJC-800 
and HP DeskJet colour printers. 

* Three or four colour separations - even for 
mono printers. 

* Extensive halftone screen control - different 
screen types, angles, screen density; features 
you would normally only find on expensive 
PostScript printers. 

* Print from file entirely in the background. 

* Fully RISC 05 3 compatible - works with 
IPrinters and supports rotated text and sprite 
printing, multiple printers etc. 

* By far the fastest printer drivers available for 
Acorn 32-bit computers - see chart. 


of each page. 




TurboDriver times Com parative tim i n gs 

Ace PROdriver with Autospool 

Acorn driver or Ace PRGdriver with no auto a pool 



Test I Test 2 Test 3 


Testl - A single DTP page of text and scanned graphic images 
Test2 - Two copies of a three page text and graphic document 
Test3 - A complex full page of graphics from Artworks. 

The timings indicate the lime in seconds to get control back. All lests 
performed on HP DeskJet 500 printer using a 4Mbyte A440 with an 
ARM3 fitted. Other machine combinations show similar performance 
gains. 



Computer Concepts Ltd 



Illustrated arc a selection of primers supported by TurboDrivers. There is 
constant development in driver support so please contact Computer 
Concepts for details of latest printers. 


Canon TurboDrivers £49 + VAT (£57.57 inch) 

(supports all BJ-10 , BJ-200, BJ-230, BJ-300 and BJC-800 printers) 

HP TurboDrivers £49 + VAT (£57.57 inch) 

(Supports all monochrome and colour DeskJet and LaserJet 
printers) 

Please specify printer type when ordering. The BJ-230 and all HP 
TurboDrivers are only suitable for RISC OS 3, / machines. 

2 MBytes required. 


Gaddesden Place, Hemel Hempstead, Herts HP2 6EX Telephone 0442 63933 Fax 0442 231632 











JONNY MENDRSSON 



Getting 
into print 

Printers always seem to cause more 
headaches than any other hardware. 
Richard Garrett explains why 


I f the Questions and Answers 
mailbag is anything to go by, 
printers are a pain. Every 
week, letters arrive front 
readers who can’t get printers 
to do what they should. 

As ii turns out, most of these 
problems are not the fault of 
particular programs or printers 
but occur when data is trans- 
ferred between the two. This 
article will attempt to explain 
the printing process and show 
how it can be improved and, 
maybe, fixed. 

Printer drivers 

The big problem is that while 
printers all do the same thing, 
more or less, the commands 
that make them do it vary sig- | 
nificantly between models. 
Sometimes one design 
becomes popular and the codes 
used to control ii are emulated 
by other makers. 

Thus, many printers can pre- 
tend to be an Epson FX-80, an 
IBM Proprinter or an HP Las- 
erJet II. Initially this is fine. 
For example, back in the 
heyday of the BBC micro, hav- 
ing a printer that was ‘Epson 
compatible’ meant that every 
program would work correctly 
(in theory, at least). 

Bui manufacturers began to 
add their own refinements and 
features, with ihc inevitable ' 
result that nothing stayed I 
standard for very long. This | 
means that to succeed in the 
mass market, all software 
packages must work with sev- 
eral different printers. 

In modern systems this com- 
patibility is achieved by using 


short programs or data files 
called printer drivers to tailor 
the program's output to 
specific printers. For some 
time, this meant that every pro- 
gram you ever bought con- 
tained a set of drivers for every 
printer you ever heard of but, 
with the unrelenting rise of the 
l Wimp, the task of writing 
drivers has been taken over by 
the people who develop GUIs. 

Nowadays, software houses 
write programs that will pro- 
duce standard output and 
which are tailored toward one 
particular interface. 

In Rise OS, printing has 
three stages. First, the appli- 
cation will transform data from 
its own internal format to 
standard desktop printer- speak. 
In DTP parlance, this process 
is called composition. 

Then the composed data is 
passed to the Printer Manager 
(the Printers application on 
Rise OS 3, or PrinterDM , 
Printer PS and suchlike on Rise 
OS 2) which refers to a printer 
definition file for your particu- 
lar printer, and converts it into 
print codes acceptable to your 
printer. Finally, these codes 
will be fed into the printer as 
fast as possible and. with any 
luck, the document, or 
whatever, will appear. 

Because high resolution 
images take up a lot of 
memory, Rise OS doesn’t 
attempt to do the whole print 
job one stage at a time but cuts 
i it into strips. When you print 
. from an application, the three 
' stages rotate. Each one does a 
I strip, passing it on to the next 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 41 



Authorised Education Dealers 


0420 561 HI 

's vstems 


47 Winchester Road 
Four Marks 
Alton 

Hants GU34 5HG 


We are major suppliers of Acorn Computer systems to schools. Why not give us a ring on 0420 561111 for 
our current prices. 

Summer Special 

Free Pro-Artisan painting package worth £100 supplied with every Acorn computer sold at rrp! 

Acom Options Acorn Educational Rental Programme 

Information Technology Says an increasingly important role in education today, but with continuing advances in 
technology and product development, it can be very expensive try ing to keep pace, For a school or college to 
provide students w ith contemporary IT systems, it constantly needs to seek funds to upgrade equipment. For some 
schools this is completely beyond their capital budgets. Recognising this, Acorn has introduced Acorn Options, a 
new rental scheme w hich can eliminate this problem and. at the same time, present many other real benefits. 

Canon ION Cameras & Accessories 

Standard RC260 ION Camera Kit £499.00 

2" ION Floppy Disk £5.25 

ION Film Adaptor £169.00 

HCCS Monochrome Digitiser £49.00 

HCCS Colour Digitiser £79.00 

HCCS Hi Vision Colour Digitiser £129.00 

Colour & Monochrome Printers 

Epson LQ100 Monochrome Dot Matrix £180.00 

Citizen 240C Colour Dot Matrix £249.00 

1 IP Deskjet 510 Monochrome Inkjet £285.00 

I IP Deskjet 500C Colour Inkjet £399.00 

Canon BJlOSx Monochrome Inkjet £199.00 

Canon BJ200 Monochrome Inkjet £299.00 

SCSI Internal Optical/CDROM Drives 

20Mbyte Floptical VHD Drive (A5000 Internal) £326.00 

128Mbyte Mag- Optical Drive (A5000 Internal) £699.00 

650Mbyte Multi-Session CDROM Drive £290.00 | 

SCSI Internal Tape Stream Drives 

1 1 50/250Mbyte Streamer using 0.25" Tapes £309.00 

2Gbyte DAT Streamer using 4mm Tapes £776.00 

| 2.5Gbyte Streamer - 8mm Tapes (A5000 Internal) £ 1 299.00 

Archimedes SCSI & IDE Interfaces 

Cumana SCSI Interface - Ax00/A5000 £139.00 

Morley Cached SCSI Interfaced - Ax00/A5000 £ 1 79.00 

Cumana Internal Interface - A30x0/A4000 £129.00 

Atomwide Parallel Port SCSI i/f - New Acorns £49.00 

Atomwide Parallel Port SCSI i/f + Printer Port £74.00 

ICS IDE Interface - AxOO £65.00 

ICS IDE Interface - A3000 £99.00 

Drive Peripherals & Fitting Kits 

Hard Drive Fitting Kit - A5000 £19.00 

Hard Drive Fitting Kit - AxOO £10.00 

Cumana/Morley High Quality SCSI Cable £19.00 

External Housings for all SCSI Devices £75.00 

SCSI Tape Streamer Software £75.00 

Hard Drive Backup Software £49.00 

Rise Developments A5000 2nd Drive Interface £35.00 


Arc RAM Upgr 

ades 

SCSI Hare 

i Drives 

IDE Hare 

1 Drives 


A540 4Mbyte 

£249.00 

85Mbyte 

£182.00 

40Mbyte 

£125.00 


A400 1 Mbyte 

£45.00 

120Mbyte 

£205.00 

85Mbyte 

£170.00 

Don't Forget... 

A 300 I Mbyte 

£105.00 

170Mbyte 

£234.00 

120Mbyte 

£187.00 


A 300 3 Mbyte 

£165.00 

250Mbyte 

£300.00 

1 70Mbyte 

£205. (X) 


A3010 2Mbyte 

£49.00 

380Mbyte 

£536.00 

210Mbyte 

£269.00 

Oiik n non Rqi/ 

A 5000 4Mbyte 

£85.00 

450Mbyte 

£580.00 

245Mbyte 

£.314.00 

UUI kJfJtjll L/dy 

A5(X)0 8Mbyte 

£399.00 

525Mbyte 

£640.00 

340Mbyte 

£365.00 

on 

A 3020/4000 4 Mbyte 

£75.00 

700Mbyte 

£773.00 

450Mbyte 

£425.00 


A30 10 4Mbyte Turbo 

£129.00 

1050Mbyte 

£949.00 

525Mbyte 

£620.00 

17th July 1993 

A 3020 4 Mbyte Turbo 

£129.00 

1600Mbyte 

£1299.00 

800Mbyte 

£985.00 


A4000 4Mbyte Turbo 

£129.00 

20(X)Mbyte 

£1799.00 

1050Mbyte 

£1186.00 


Customer Information 


SCSI and IDE drives are sold as bare drives only. Housings, mounting kits, interface cards and cables are extra. 
All SCSI devices (CDROM, tape/hard/optical drives) are for internal mounting. SCSI interfaces are extra. 

Our range of SCSI housings are suitable for mounting a wide range of SCSI devices. 

Products noted A5000 Internal mean they can be fitted to an A5000 as a second floppy drive replacement. 
Our Turbo RAM upgrades will increase memory capacity as well as doubling the speed of your computer. 

All the above prices are subject to currency fluctuations. Please telephone before placing your order. 

The products listed above are from well known manufacturers such as Conner, Hewlett Packard, Cumana, etc. 
Prices exclude VAT and carriage. Payment by Access, Visa, Cheque, Postal Order or Cash. 


SJ Research 


Training 


Opening Hours 

Mondays 

11:00am to 5:30pm 


Tuesday to Friday 
9:00am to 5:30pm 

Saturdays 
9:00am to 5:00pm 








PRINTERS 


stage and then waiting until the 
printer is ready for more before 
starting the cycle again. 

This produces the familiar 
experience of sitting in from of 
the computer for half an hour, 
secure in the knowledge that it 
won’t let you use the desktop 
again until the last line comes 
out of your ageing dot-matrix 
printer. But it doesn’t have to 
be like that... 

Background printing 

Of the three stages, the most 
time-consuming is generally 
the last, that of sending codes 
to the printer. Most printers 
have very little memory of 
Setting the printer connection to output to a file their own and can only take so 

much input before they have to 
go off and print it, making 
room for the next chunk. 

While the printer is busy 
bashing, burning or squirting 
ink into the paper, the compu- 
ter itself is doing very little. It 
just sits around, idly waiting to 
send more codes. 

This last stage is so simple 
that, in Rise OS, it is designed 
to run as an interrupt routine. If 
you isolate it from the first two 
data conversion steps, the phy- 
sical priming process can carry 
on, in the background, freeing 
the desktop for your use. 
Sounds great, doesn’t it - but 
background printing is not 
generally available, even with 
the latest operating system. So 
we have to use another method 
to speed up printing. 

This process of separating 
this last stage is called spool- 
ing, which means writing print 
codes to a file on disc or in 
Ram instead of sending them 
to the printer. To do this, you 
just select File in the con- 
figuration option of the printer 
manager and then you specify 
a filename. 

When you print from an 
application, the print codes are 
spooled to that file. Once all 
the data conversion has been 
done, you reconnect to the 
printer and drag the file onto 
the primer icon. The printer 
will chunter away in the corner 
and you, meanwhile, get on 
with something more interest- 
ing, For a detailed explanation 
of this, see last month’s Hints 
and Tips. 

Although many people refer 
to this method by the mislead- 
ing title "background printing’, 
the intial stages of composing 
a document and converting 


Product details 

1. DRIVERS 

• Computer Concepts makes Rise OS 3 printer drivers for Canon BJC800, 
BJ200 and BJ10 compatible inkjets, Hewlett-Packard DeskJets and the 
new Epson ESC/P2 printers (like the Stylus 800), These so-called Turbo 
Drivers spoof the print output to memory or hard disc before sending it 
to the printer. 

Rise OS 2 drivers for the Canons have been available for a while and 
Rise OS 3 versions have just been released. Turbo Drivers are bundled 
with printers or sold separately for £49, As part of the software protec- 
tion, they are supplied with a special printer lead and won't work 
without one. Don't worry: CC will replace it if you break one. Computer 
Concepts is on (0442) 63933. 

• Oak Solutions' Pro Drivers (formerly produced by Ace Computing) are 
designed for high-quality colour work with packages like Artworks. They 
use a 'tweaked' version of the Rise OS 3 Printer manager to provide 24- 
bit colour printing, colour separation, and automatic spooling to hard 
disc on Hewlett Packard, Epson E5C/P2 and Canon BJC80Q colour inkjet 
printers. The price is £39.95 + VAT and postage. Oak Solutions and Ace 
Computing are on (0274} 620423. 

• Rise Developments supplies standard Rise OS 3 drivers for Hewlett 
Packard's DeskJet 500c and 550c printers (£17,63 inc VAT) and a range of 
Rise OS 2 drivers for Star printers. The Star drivers will not be upgraded 
as the printers concerned are now supported by Acorn, Details from Rise 
Developments on (0727} 840303. 

2. DIRECT LASER PRINTING. 

Direct laser printing is a method of printing which is unique to the 
Archimedes, Three companies sell direct drive systems: Computer 
Concepts, Calligraph and HCCS. Direct drive printers are driven from the 
Archimedes by a special podule. Whereas normal lasers construct images 
in the printer's own Ram, the direct drive system uses the Arm to 
generate an image in the computer's memory which it sends straight to 
the laser. This gives a higher data throughput than you'd get on a 
conventional laser for the price: direct drive printing is very fast. 

• Computer Concepts sells a range of laser printers called Laser Direct, 
These are Canon LPB4 and LPB8 mk3 units with a video interface installed 
alongside the usual serial and parallel sockets. The current driver 
software runs outside the Rise OS 3 Printer manager, but CC is working 
on an integrated version. The LBT4 is £1173.82 + VAT and the LBT8 is 
£1756.62 + VAT, 

• HCCS makes a direct drive micro-podule for its Ultimate Expansion 
System, The card, which works with the Canon LPB4 and the Canon LPB4 
Lite, is called Laser Express and costs £249 +■ VAT. Contact HCCS on 091 - 
487 0760. 

• Calligraph markets a range of direct drive systems under the title of 
ArcLaser. Calligraph is on (0223) 461143. 



into print codes hang the 
machine up for as long as they 
ever did. 

In true background printing, 
all three stages should take 
place behind the scenes. This 
would require a composing 
program that would run 
simultaneously with other 
applications. 

This idea is more appropri- 
ate to time-slicing operating 
systems (like Unix) than to the 
c o- operati ve mu Iti-rasking 

approach favoured by Acorn, 

Background printing in fact 
does little or nothing to 
improve the overall time taken 
to print a single copy of a doc- 
ument; for that you need a 
faster printer, or a faster printer 
manager. It does, however, 
return control of the computer 
to the user significantly more 
quickly than by using the con- 
ventional method. 

It is further enhanced in Rise 
OS 3 by a queuing system in 
the printer manager which 
allows you to drop several files 
onto the printer icon. These 
will be fed to the printer in the 
order received. 

If, in the future, Acorn's 
mini mu m mach i ne con fi gu ra - 
tion is expanded to include a 
hard disc, it is likely that back- 
ground printing will become 
standard. In the meantime, sev- 
eral manufacturers are offering 
solutions of their own. You 
will find more details on this in 
the Product Box on the left. 

Types of printing 

Under Rise OS, there are three 
main ways in which data can 
be sent to your printer. These 
are text mode, graphics mode 
or PostScript. 

Text mode is the easiest to 
understand, and acts just like 
the old Beeb word processors 
did. For each character in a 
text file (such as one produced 
in EasiWord or Edit), a one- 
byte Ascii code is sent by the 
computer. The printer then 
looks this up in its own 
memory, and prints the charac- 
ter corresponding to that code. 
So, for example, if Ascii 65 is 
sent to the printer, the printer 
will print a capital A. 

As well as plain characters, 
the computer can send addi- 
tional instructions to do things 
like underline, bold, italics and 
so on. In Rise OS 3, the codes 
which need to be sent to obtain 
these highlights can be altered 


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8. Drag the modified printer driver fife into the Printer control window of 
the printer manager then click Menu and choose the Configuration to 
check that the modified text mode has been selected in the Text quality 
icon. Then save the choices using the printer manager's konbar menu. 


9, Next time you use that mode {say, draft copies from your wordproces- 
sor or spreadsheet) the new effect should work whenever you use italics. 
You can replace any effect with any codes, all using PrintEdit. 


Editing a definition file 


6. Replace the original 
instruction with your new 
one. That is, ESC 4 becomes 
ESC 27 r 5 or r in other words, 
the string 2 7, "4" is replaced 
with 27 ( V',5. Similarly 27 r "5 M 
is replaced with 27 r "r",0, This 
effectively means that when 
italics are turned on or off, 
the code for orange text will 
be sent. 

7. Click on OK and then save 
the modified printer defini- 
tion file under a new name, 
keeping the original for refer- 
ence. The save box can be 
brought up by clicking Menu 
over the PrintEdit and moving 
into the Save submenu. 


Here's a step-by-step example showing you how to change the character- 
istics of a printer driver to suit your needs. In this case, imagine someone 
who has an Epson JX-SO colour dot-matrix printer and wants to change 
the draft italics highlight to produce orange text instead of italics. 


1 . Go to the printer manual and find out the control codes for the desired 
effect - changing print colour on a JX-80 is shown as ESC r, followed by a 
number (0-6) for the colour where orange is 5 and black is 0, 


2. Run PrintEdit, and then open the Printers directory, followed by the 
subdirectory for your make of printer (Epson in this case). AH these files 
are on the Rise OS 3 applications disc. 


3. Find the printer definition 
file for your printer (JX 80 for 
the example), ff your particu- 
lar model is not mentioned, 
consult the printer manual 
and/or the ReadJAe file for a 
suitable alternative. When 
you drag the relevant fife into 
the PrintEdit window, the 
printer definition is loaded 
into PrintEdit , and the icons 
in the window will slowly fill up. 


4, Click on the mode you wish to edit (Edit draft highlights in this case). 


5. Find the lines you want to change. In this case, the Turn italics on and 
Turn italics off lines, say, 27, "4" and 27, "5” respectively. These instruc- 
tions are called escape sequences and are distinguished from the printed 
text because they start with Ascii code 27, In the Epson manual they're 
referred to as ESC 4 and ESC 5. If you Ye unfamiliar with printer manuals, 
look them up to ensure that you understand what* s going on. 


using the printer definition file 
editor PrintEdit. 

Text modes are fast because 
they require minimum process- 
ing but they're fairly dull to 
look at as they only print text. 
Common uses are for printing 
program listings, simple word- 
processing and mail labels. 

In graphics mode, images 1 
are sent to the printer as a l 
stream of bits. These are then i 
reconstituted as dots on the | 
page. DTP packages print out- . 
line fonts in this way, by 
breaking each character down I 
into dots and outputting these 
to the printer. Because this J 
generates a lot of bits of infor- j 
mation, printing can take a 
Iona time. 

The number of graphics 1 
modes (resolutions) available 
varies from printer to printer 
and you can use PrintEdit to 
modify them or, indeed, to ere- 
ate new ones. 

If you arc fortunate enough 
to own a PostScript printer, 
you needn’t worry about any I 
of this. PostScript is basically a I 
program m mg lan gu age for 
describing pages, and when the 
PostScript driver is chosen, I 
images are sent to the printer | 
in Ibis language. Try printing I 
to a file using a PostScript i 
driver, and load the file into i 
Edit: you can sec that the con- i 
tents of the file is in some kind | 
of language. 

In the ease of PostScript, the | 
only thing you get to edit from 
the desktop is the list of aliases ^ 
relating desktop fonts to those I 
stored on the printer, using an I 
application called FontPrint. I 
This is because PostScript I 
printers have a number of out- \ 
line font definitions already ,, 
built into them. 

Problems 

Once you've got the hang of 
using PrintEdit and you've 
come to terms with the mas- 
sive list of control codes in the 
dreaded printer manual, many 
problems become trivial. Here 
are some examples of common j 
questions, all easily solved , 
when you know how. 

© I’ve got a really obscure 
dot-matrix printer and there’s 
no printer driver for it on my 
Rise OS 3 applications disc. 
Where can [ get one? 

© Unfortunately you pro- 
bably can% but if you 


investigate your printer 
manual, it’ll probably tell 
you that it can emulate some 
printer for which there is a 
driver, usually an Epson. 

© When I print in text mode 
everything comes out in 
double spacing, even when it 
should be Single. Why is this? 

Q When a carriage printer 
starts a new line, it does two 
things - it moves the print 
head back to the left margin 
(a carriage return, Ascii code 
13) and it rolls the paper up 
by one line (a line feed. Ascii 
code 10). Printers are often 
set up to feed a line auto- 
matically every time they get 
a code 13, and you need to 
configure your printer not to 
do this. This usually involves 
setting Dip switches on the 
printer. Alternatively, use 
PrintEdit to stop the Arc 
sending line feeds with each 
new line. 

© When 1 try to print £ signs. 
I get # characters instead. How 
can I put this right? 

© The Ascii character set 
definition doesn’t cover all 
the characters in the world. 
This means non-standard 
characters like the pound 
sign (which is non-standard 
because Ascii is American) 
can have different codes on 
different printers. 

The way to stop this incor- 
rect character-mapping 
happening is to consult your 
printer manual to find out 
what charucter(s) the printer 
needs to receive to print a 
pound sign. Then call up the 
character mappings option in 
PrintEdit and write the new 
codes into the definition for 
character 163 (the Archi- 
medes code for f£’). 

In conclusion, if you’re buying 
a new printer, the best advice 
is to buy one that is supported 
by Rise OS 3 or one that 
comes with its own reliable 
driver software. If you have a 
printer that is not supported, 
then read its manual and the 
Read_Me files in the Printers 
on your applications disc to see 
which definition file produces 
the best approximation. Every- 
thing might not work correctly, 
but at least you will be able to 
do your printing. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 45 



A310 & A305 upgrade 
column 


35MHz 
ARM3 for 
only £145 

The only 35MHz ARM3 
upgrade which can he switched 
to run at 25MHz. (This latter 
option is to allow the use of the 
floating point accelerator chip 
when available). 

Gives 4 times speed increase 
High quality 4-layer board 
Fits A 305, A3 10, A440, 400/1 
series 

Fully compatible with other 
upgrades (memory, hard discs, 
RISC OS 3 etc) 

Installation is straightforward for all the above 
machines, but a fitting sen ice is available in all 
cases. 

"Speaking as a veteran upgrade fitter, the unit 
itself wa s a joy to fit - it slid straight into place. 
If only every upgrade was as easy to fit !" 

(Mr A.K. - Bedford) 

Please note also that the A300 series and old 
A440 require the MEMCIa upgrade. 

35MHz ARM3 - £145 

MEMCIa - £25 Floating point unit - £ TBA 

Please write or phone for full details. 

Our usual money-back guarantee applies to 
this product. 

Limited stocks available. 


A3000 memory 

An easy to fit and reliable RAM upgrade. Gold 
plated connectors ensure long term reliability. 
This upgrade uses a four-layer circuit board as 
recommended by Acorn. No soldering needed. 
2Mb RAM board (upgradable to 4Mb) - £47 
4Mb RAM - £99 

Bare board (without RAM chips) - £25 
2Mb to 4Mb upgrade - £60 


A301 0/A3020/A4000 RAM 

These machines may all be upgraded by easy 
to fit, plug-in components. No soldering is 
required. 

A3020/A4000 extra 2Mb - £55 
A30 10 extra I Mb (2Mb total) - £29 
A30 10 upgrade to 4Mb - £107 


All products fully guaranteed. Many 
products also carry our 14-day money-back 
guarantee too. Please phone for details. 


IFEL Ltd 


RISC OS 3 

Acorn's new operating system for their range of 
RISC computers. The old version of RISC OS 
(2.00) is just 5 1 2K long, whereas OS 3 contains 
2Mb of code. 

Many applications which w ere previously 
supplied on disc are now contained in the OS 
ROMs. This includes improved versions of 
Draw , Paint and Edit. Because they are available 
on ROM they are always instantly accessible, 
and also occupy less RAM space. 

Other features include extra "background" 
operations. For example, discs can now be 
formatted or files copied while the machine is 
used for other purposes. 

RISC OS 3 may be used on the A305. A3 10. 
A440, 400/1 series. A3000. A540 etc. 

RISC OS 3 £41.70 

A305, A3 10 and A 440 owners please note. 
Although the ROM sockets inside your machine 
are large enough to accommodate the new 
ROMs, simply plugging in RISC OS 3 will not 
work. This problem is overcome by installing the 
RISC OS Carrier Board first. The RGB may be 
used with any version of RISC OS. This carrier 
board is compatible with memory boards. ARM3 
upgrades and does not in any way obstruct 
expansion cards ("podules"). 

RISC OS Carrier Board £18 


A5000 systems & memory 

A 5000 with RISC OS 3. 80Mb hard disc, 
multisync monitor and ARM3. - £1399. 

A5000 learning curve. - £1445. 

Free 4Mb RAM upgrade included in the price. 

2Mb memory board (4Mb total) - £75 
A compact board measuring just 104mm by 
49mm. this design fits vertically in your 
machine. No soldering required. Unlike larger 
boards, there is no need to remove the disc drive. 
Four-layer design as specified by Acorn. A bare 
board (ie without the RAM chips fitted) is also 
available. 


Hard disc upgrades 

A range of fast SCSI or IDE internal hard discs 
w ith a year’s warranty, in sizes from 40Mb 
upwards. Complete systems supplied w ith all 
metalwork and cables. 400/1 machines merely 
require the drive and controller card. 300 series 
require a backplane. 

40Mb SCSI - £180 85Mb SCSI - £210 

1 20Mb SCSI - £250 210Mb SCSI - £320 

Fast 16 bit SCSI card - £100 

50Mb IDE - £160 1 20Mb IDE - £250 

IDE controller card - £75 

(add £75 for external version of SCSI discs) 

Various 

Aleph One 386 1 Mb PC Card - £390 (4Mb £475) 
Aleph One 486 1Mb PC Card - £490 (4Mb £575) 
Impression 2 - £130 

Free price list available upon request. 
Prices exclude VAT. 


IFEL Ltd Educational and quantity discount available. 

34 Culver Road, Saltash, Cornwall PL12 41)R. Tel (0752) 847286. Fax (0752) 840029 


Memory expansion 

Extra memory is without doubt the most worthwhile 
addition to any A300 series machine. Some programs 
won’t even run w ith only 1 Mb. and 2Mb is a bare 
minimum. Certain applications, desktop publishing 
for example, benefit from a 4Mb system. 

2Mb - £89 4Mb - £128 

Compatibility. The memory is detected and used by 
the machine automatically, so there are no special 
commands needed. Works with both RISC OS 2 and 
RISC OS 3. 

The use of only eight RAM chips ensures low power 
consumption. Compatible with ARM3 upgrades, 
backplanes, hard discs etc. This upgrade is supplied 
on just one. compact board measuring only 195mm 
by 40mm. Four-layer circuitry reduces electrical 
noise for trouble-free operation. The 2Mb upgrade 
may be upgraded to 4Mb later by the user, without 
any soldering. A copy of the fitting instructions is 
available free of charge. 

A complete fitting service is available for our RAM 
boards covering courier collection, installation and 
testing. MEMCIa, return delivery and guarantee. 

This is normally a three-day service (eg, collected 
Monday, returned Wednesday). We have been 
upgrading 300 series computers for over three years, 
and during that lime a reliability record second-to- 
none has been established. 

Is there any other 300 series RAM upgrade wich has 
been available for as long as this one. and which has 
the same reputation for quality and reliability? No. 

Still not sure? Compare it with the competition 
before making up your mind. Use our 14-day money - 
back guarantee to check it out for yourself 

RISC OS Carrier Board £18 

This is an easy to install adaptor board for the larger 
RISC OS 3 ROMs. A set of links on the board allows 
it to be used with RISC OS 2 and easily adapted for 
RISC OS 3 later. Suitable for use with the A305, 

A3 10 and A440. The adaptor has been fully tested 
with RISC OS version 2 and version 3. It is fully 
compatible with other hardware upgrades such as the 
RAM board described above, ARM3’s, backplanes, 
VI DC enhancers and expansion cards. 

Note: Early versions of certain 300 series RAM 
upgrades from other suppliers do not work properly 
at first with RISC OS 3. The problem can be 
completely overcome simply by changing a chip on 
the RAM board. IFEL can supply a replacement chip 
for only £3. Be sure to specify w hether your board is 
2Mb or 4Mb. 

4-slot backplane with fan £52 

Combination deals 

4Mb with MEMCIa, self-fit £152 

Collection of your computer, installation of 4Mb of 
RAM, MEMCIa, and RISC OS Carrier Board, 
testing, full guarantee, and return delivery £189 

As above, but with 2Mb of RAM £125 

(Add £40 to have RISC OS 3 fitted at the same time.) 


Special prices available on hard discs, ARM3 boards 
and software when ordered with any memory 
upgrade. 




RAM for 410 & 420 

Upgrade from 1Mb to 2Mb - £33 
Upgrade from 2Mb to 4Mb - £65 
Upgrade from 1Mb to 4Mb - £98 
Supplied with full instructions. 



R E \/ I E W S 


IN BRIEF 

We take a look at the high resolution update of HCCS' video digitiser. 
Plus, the first Arc version of Fujitsu's 3. Sin magneto-optical drive 



TV images can be captured for later manipulation with an art package 


HIVISION 

Supplier: HCCS 
Tel: 091-487 0760 
Price: £129 (£45 for Vision or 
C Vision upgrade) plus v AT 
VI a chines: All Archimedes 

This is the long-awaited high- 
resolution version of the com- 
pany \ budget video digitisers. 
Hi Vision will cost you just 
£!29 (or £45 if you already 
have a mono Vision or colour 
C Vision digitiser). 

Supplied as a single half- 
width podule with single 
phono socket for video input 
(just two memory chips for the 
upgrade) along with two soft- 
ware disks. Hi Vision digitises 
any composite video source 
from a VCR. satellite receiver, 
camcorder or whatever to pro- 
duce 720 x 508 sprites in 256 
colours (Mode 21). 

Manuals for the software are 
supplied on disc in HCCS' 


■Emanuci I format. The main 
part of the software is the ' 
Hi Vis ion application. This pro- , 
duces a window with con- 
nected video displayed inside. 

The desired image can he i 


grabbed and then processed to 
display full -resolution black- 
and-white or colour images. , 
stored as a sprite. Brightness, 
contrast and colour saturation 
control is possible. 


The processing takes sec- 
onds for mono or a few 
minutes for colour but the 
results are worth it. With a 
decent camcorder you can 
enter quite reasonable family 
portraits into your Arc or cap- 
ture TV characters for manipu- 
lation in an art package. 

The only problem is the 
slow update rate of the image. 
If the image is fast moving it's 
next to impossible to grab the 
right frame. This is where 
Hi Finder comes in. 

This displays a last updated 
image with simple start/stop 
controls. Loading Hi Finder 
with Hi Vision lets you grab the 
right frame in the board's store 
then process and store it with 
the main application. 

This has got around the few 
problems of Vision and C Vi- 
sion. For graphical input for 
the Arc. HCCS’ baby is worth 
every penny. 

Geoff Bains 


MO DRIVE 

Supplier: The Serial Fort 
Tel: (0749) 670058 
Price: £999 for external 
12(l\!b option 

The future of storage looks like 
a 3.5in floppy, It. holds 120Mb. 
fits your shirt pocket, and it’s 
ideal for secure backing up. 

The Serial Port is the first 
company to supply Lite Fujitsu 
M 2 5 1 1 3.5in mag n e to-opt i ca 1 
disc drive for the Arc. MO 
mechanisms are usually quite a 
bit larger than 3.5in hard discs, 
and, because of the laser, have 
a beefy fan to keep them cool. 

But the Fujitsu-built drive is 
a jewel - as well as being the 
fastest MO drive on the mar- 
ket. it's exactly the same size 
as a floppy disc drive. So you 
could fit it into your A50GG as 
an internal drive. 

The external version is in a 
large metal box, with its own 





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power supply and fan. Making | 
the SCSI connection is simple | 
if you remember the SCSI ID 
has to be different from both 
your card (always number 7) 
and any SCSI devices that you 
may already have. 


Take the terminator off your 
insi SCSI device, link the MO, 
and then put the terminator 
back on. 

The Serial Port supplies a 
SCSI -card independent format- 
ter and filing system, so 


whatever SCSI card you have, 
it is pretty foolproof. You load 
the MO filing system modules 
anti from then on use the MO 
discs as floppy discs. 

Except they are about 160 
times bigger. And faster. Per- 
formance when loading is a tad 
slower than a hard disc, around 
6H)K per second, though sav- 
ing is only a third this Speed. 

The software has nice 
touches: the disc name is dis- 
played on the iconbar. and the 
free space display multi -tasks. 
I had no problems, even when 
I was. performing several 
simultaneous filer operations. 

The verdict - glorious. 
Sy quest drives are the only 
competition: true, they are 

cheaper, but the Sy quest cartri- 
dges are more expensive, have 
smaller capacity and are less 
reliable than MO discs. Nor 
will a Sy quest dove fit in your 
pocket. 

Graham Bell 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 47 






' IW x 848 
1280 x 512 


256 colours 


800 x 600 

85Hz 


1152 x 424 

80Hz 


800 x 300 

576x^24__ 

80Hz 
90 Hz 



A, 


* 


A new graphics accelerator card for 
the Archimedes, the ColourCard brings 
a host of improvements to the video 
capabilities of any Archimedes A300'. 
400* 540 or 5000 series computer. 


The simple to fit, single width expansion card is 
completely compatible with ail RISC OS desktop 
software, but brings much higher screen resolutions 
at higher screen refresh rates [less flicker and easier 
on the eye}. 

In 16 and 256 colour screen modes all the colours 
are selectable from 16 millloni hues. This means 
scanned pictures can be seen with 256 true grey- 
levels on screen and that you are no longer restricted 
to the preset Acorn palette, Some applications, such 
as ArtWorks. can provide better screen colouring 
using the new palettes. 


In addition, the ColourCard offers 15 bil-per-pixe! true 
colour screen modes having over 32,000 colours on 
screen at once. Although these screen modes are 
not yet desktoo software compatible, it is expected 
that programs will become available that take advan- 
tage of the modes. The ColourCard is supplied with a 
24-bit preview utility to show 24-bit Clear files in 
stunning full colour. 

The ColourCard reduces the load on the main Archi- 
medes memon/ and so allows the ARM processor to 
run much faster than would normally be possible in 
high resolution screen modes. Depending on 
machine and screen mode, graphic operations can 
be up to twice as fast. 

The ColourCard revolutionises DTP and graphics 
work, and opens up the world of true-colour graphics 
to the Archimedes user for the first time. 

The CoiourCard has been developed and is backed by 


CofourCard offers 3 time s the pixei area of standard 
Acorn VGA mode 27, 

the largest and most successful Archimedes 
developer. It is available now, and for added peace of 
mind comes with a 14-day, no quibble money back 
guarantee. 




(Tli*? ColourCard is compatible Kith all multi- scanning monitors, 
tOnh higher seaming rate monitors can manage 1152 jt $48 
resolalitm. Lower scanning raff monitors may display some resold 
linns as lower refresh rates. *AdOO and early A4QQ computers may 
neat an additional Genlock connector ta he fitted internally,} 

Price £249.00 +£6 p&p + vat (£299.62 Inc} 
Available from all good dealers and from: 

WILD VISION 

15 Witney Way, Bolden Business Park, 
Bolden Colliery, Tyne & Wear, NE35 9PE 
Tel: 091 519 1455 Fax: 091 510 1929 

H 

Computer Concepts Ltd 

Gaddesden Place, Heme! Hempstead, 

Herts, HP2 6EX 

Tel: 0442 63933 Fax: 0442 231632 
E&EQ Details are subject to change without notice. 









DESIGN 


Business matters 

From logos to business cards. Rob Miller explains how to produce striking stationery 


A nything that is used to 
illustrate a concept can be 
regarded as a logo. Acorn’s 
familiar green symbol is a 
clear example, as are the three 
letters that make up the BBC 
logo on the cover of this 
magazine. Less obvious is the 
way something is actually 
written, like The Guardian's 
distinctive masthead. 

By choosing the right letter- 
ing (or font) and, possibly, a 
suitable graphic, it’s straight- 
forward to get an idea across. 
There’s no need to spend thou- 
sands of pounds (like one 
phone company I could men- 
tion) to produce the desired 
result. Armed with an Archi- 
medes and Draw , it’s possible 
to get professional results. 

The first step in designing a 
logo is to think what image 
you are trying to portray. It’s 
obviously wrong to use a mod- 
ern design for an antique 
business, or an Olde Worlde 
logo for a company producing 
hi-tech products. 

There’s a certain amount of 
psychology behind the right 
design. Text displayed in a 
classical font gives an estab- 
lished air to a company logo 
whereas a more informal font 
creates an easygoing feel. It 
comes down to taste, but you 
can see whether a logo is right 
for the job. 

Designing a logo 

First, decide what character 
style, or font, you wish to use. 
The Archimedes has a massive 
selection of fonts, covering 
virtually every style imagi- 
nable. There are a number of 
companies producing fonts for 
the Arc, such as The Electronic 
Font Factory and Design 
Concepts. Both sell font fam- 
ilies from between about £7 to 
£30. These are hand-drawn and 
the quality always good. 

A third source is by purchas- 
ing a program such as Compu- 
ter Concepts’ ArtWorks , which 
comes with over 200 free 
fonts. Other applications on the 



Fig:1 The logo is laid out, the grid-lock tool allowing accurate positioning 




Fig 3: A balanced business card produced by coupling logo and address 


market, such as wordproces- 
sors and desktop publishing 
packages, usually come with a 
selection of fonts that you can 
add to your collection. 

A serifed font (with tails on 
letters) gives a more personal 
look to a piece of text. Try 
loading Draw and comparing 
text, first in Trinity, then in 
Homerton and see what I 
mean. Details of using Draw 
are given in the Applications 
Guide with your computer. 

Garamond is similar to Trin- 
ity but more rounded and is 
ideal for letterheads. There are 
several versions for the Archi- 
medes. Because of copyright 
laws, a font on the Arc will 
have a different name to a 
similar one on another make of 
computer. Don’t assume that a 
company doesn’t produce a 
particular font, just because 
you can’t find the name. 

The picture 

As well as lettering, a logo can 
incorporate a picture or symbol 
that illustrates the company or 
individual involved. More 
practically, the symbol should 
be designed so it is easy to 
position next to text (the name 
and address) with balance. 
Symbols with fiat, vertical 
sides work best as it’s easy to 
justify text against them. 

One of the easiest ways of 
designing a symbol is to take 
the initial letters from a com- 
pany’s or individual’s name 
and join them together in some 
way, such as a monogram. All 
sorts of text styles can be used 
(they needn’t be the same as 
that used for the name and 
address) from simple block 
lettering to illuminated charac- 
ters such as those used by 
monks in medieval times. 

You could have a go at pro- 
ducing your own symbol or, if 
you're not particularly hot on 
the design front borrow one. 
It’s obviously unacceptable 
(legally and morally) to copy 
direct, although it’s fine to 
adapt ideas. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 49 





ACORN WORLD ... Be Prepared! 


Acorn World ’93 will show you complete computing solutions for 
education, special needs, publishing, entertainment and personal productivity. 


' \ Acorn World ’93 offers the entire range of equipment, software and services in one dedicated 
jJJ/r exhibition, comprising the biggest ever line-up of Acorn-related products and solutions 
Sbr and key topic seminars. 


For existing users, newcomers to computing and other system users. 

Acorn World ’93 is at Wembley Exhibition Centre 

October 29-31. 


• Come and try- the 
latest software, 
equipment and 
peripherals 


Enjoy the home • 
entertainment 
section 


Test your skills • 
with the latest games 


• See today’s and 
tomorrow’s top 
educational packages 


he pre-press and 
publishing area 


Acorn 
WORLD ^ 



Don miss it! 


Acorn 


For further information please send S.A.E. to ACORN WORLD, CIO EXHIBITION PLANNING SERVICES, 
PO BOX 162, STAINES TW19 5JX or telephone 0223 254441. 





D E S 1 G INI 


There are a number of books 
aimed at designers, all of 
which could spark you off and 
inspire further ideas. One in 
particular that 1 can recom- 
mend is The Encyclopaedia of 
Signs and Symbols by John 
Laing and David Wire, and 
published by Studio Editions 
(ISBN 1 85170 967 3), The 
book includes all manner of 
drawings from cave paintings, 
through Celtic and medieval 
symbols through to 20th Cen- 
tury art deco work. 

The Grand Design 

For this example, I've chosen a 
simple, block-type monogram, 
consisting of the letters ‘O' 
and ‘l’. 

1 created the logo in Draw 
using a single, closed line. The 
black-and-white areas were 
produced bv positioning con- 
trol points on the line so 
certain parts of the shape over- 
lapped (see figure I ), The grid- 
lock tool was used to position 
points accurately. 

The right and bottom sides 
of the monogram were made 
thicker to give something to 
place the name and address 
against, and to provide an 
underlined effect. 

Three of a Kind 

The three types of stationery 
you're likely to need are 
note paper, business cards and 
compliment slips. Each has 
different dimensions and this 
affects the way you position 
the logo. 

The traditional way when 
writing a letter to someone is 
to place your address at the top 
right of the page and the per- 
son's address underneath and 
to the left. 

With notepaper for a busi- 
ness, it’s more important to 
keep the address separate so 
it's easy to see at a glance. For 
this reason, the name and 
address block is positioned at 
the bottom of the paper on a 
single line, making it easy to 
locate and read. 

The monogram can be posi- 
tioned anywhere on the paper, 
but having it at the top, in the 
middle of page, gives it a 
balanced and authorative look. 

To centre everything on the 
page, a rectangle the size of the 
page was created in Draw and 
the name and address and 
monogram were then posi- 
tioned horizontally by hand. 


The design company 

I've gone for a combination of abstract image and classical text The Taurus 
logo was produced in a similar way to the main example, overlapping used 
to produce a stark, black-and-white contrast Curves were used instead of 
straight lines. The image was inspired by cave painting designs depicting 
men hunting bison. A non-serifed font (Optima ) gives the logo an 
authoritative look and capitals suit the single-word company name. 



The engineering firm 

In the second example we are designing a logo to be used by an engineer- 
ing company. 

The firm wants to give an impression of precision and organisation, A 
logo for such a business should therefore be neat and exact as well as 
being clear and bold. 

A large, square font (Microbus) was chosen for the job as it has a solid 
and chunky look to it. The grid formation, separating the parts of the 
company name, gives the logo a sense of organisation while being visually 
very striking. The framework idea again reflects the technical nature of the 
firm's business. 

The umlaut over the letter J 0 J had to be produced by hand, as the font 
used did not include one. Below you see the final design. 



Useful addresses 

The Electronic Font Foundry, Tel: (0344) 89 1355 
Design Concept 30 South Oswald Road, Edinburgh, EH9 2HG 
Computer Concepts, Tel: (0442) 63933 
TJ Reproductions, Tel: 081-451 6220 


All objects were grouped 
together then justified using 
the Middle option. The group 
was then un grouped and the 
large rectangle deleted. Figure 
2 shows the final page and 
how your notepaper will look. 

Compliment slips are pri- 
marily to acknowledge 
someone's communication, but 
without having to write a full- 
blown letter. Some while space 
is required for a brief note, 
therefore, but you can make 
the logo as large as you w ant. 

In this example. I've simply 
taken the notepaper design and 
cut out the centre. Most com- 
pliment slips are printed on 
paper the same width as A 4 
but one third the height 
(210mm x 99mm). Using the 
grid in Draw, you can position 
the various elements. 

A business card is, in effect, 
a reminder who someone is, 
who they work for and what 
they do. There’s no need to 
provide an area to write on so 
all the space available can be 
used to get the necessary infor- 
mation across. 

Placing monogram and 
name/address side-by-side pro- 
vides a solid block, roughly the 
right shape to fit on a standard 
business card. If you consider 
A 5 to be a sheet of A4 folded 
in half, then a business card 
works out as an A8 size sheet 
(52.5mm x 74.25 mm). 

The monogram and name 
and address block can be posi- 
tioned by placing them roughly 
together and then using the 
Justify tool to get the position- 
ing accurate. Figure 3 shows 
the business card on screen, 
taking up a full A4. landscape 
page. This makes printing 
easier to do. 

Printing your work 

Note paper and compliment 
slips can be printed out full 
resolution, as they appear on 
the page, A laser printer will 
be fine for this, A print bureau 
will be able to do this for you. 

It's unlikely you'll have a 
printer capable of printing onto 
small cards, so it's easier to 
print out the card design onto a 
sheet of A4 and get a print 
bureau to shrink it (and print 
it) for you. This system of 
photo-reduction also improves 
the print quality. 

All the examples in this 
piece are included on this 
month’s 3,5in disc. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 51 





£15 STAR LETTER 

1 wonder if you can help me, I 
have just got back into the 
Acorn scene, after many years 
away, by buying a second- 
hand BBC micro. 

I'm thinking of starting up a 
fanzine called Byte Back for 
anybody who has a BBC 
micro, and perhaps wants to 
learn more about it or has 
knowledge that could benefit 
other people. 

As far as I'm concerned, the 
way someone’s interest in 
anything is kept alive is by 
being able to share it with 
other people with similar inter- 
ests. It doesn’t matter how 
"old’ the subject is: take vin- 
tage car col Hectors for exam- 
ple. I truly believe that the 
BBC micro is one of the best 
machines ever built, even 
today. I love being able to inter- 
face it with just about anything 
I can possibly think of. 

The concept of Byte Back is 
to show BBC micro users that 
people still love the machine 
for what it can do - not every- 
one has left it behind to 
'upgrade'. If anybody would 
be inter- 


space devoted to 32- bit 
machines; however, don’t 
take this as a pronouncement 
on the eight -bit scene. 

Ideas such as this could 
prove the most creative force 
in the eight-bit market since 
the explosion of the BBC 
public domain scene over the 
last two years. There’s no 
doubt that the BBC is still a 
very capable machine: how 
many Spectrums and Com- 
modore 64 s do you see 
around these days? It’s 
definitely worth supporting. 

FASTER ARTWORK 

J am writing in connection 
with your feature 'Gel in the 
Picture’ in the June issue of 
Acorn User . 

Rob Miller says in his article 
"ArtWorks is not a program for 
the impatient among you. The 
tree frog took four days,’ 

The illustrations 1 enclose 
took no longer than one day to 
create in ArtWorks. 1 am a pro- 
fessional graphic artist, hut 
ArtWorks has only been out for 
a few' months and it is the first | 
vector graphics art package 1 
have used (apart from Draw). 
So, I would say that ArtWorks 


ested 

in the idea 
of Byte Back , I 
would be very pleased if 
they would drop me a line at 


this 

address. I'Ll 
reply to every letter I get 


is not slow, but it is the artists 
who take a long time to pro- 
duce the effects they want. 

It seems ArtWorks is mal- 
igned a great deal because of 
the complexity of its tools, and 
its apparent slowness because 
most people seem to feel the 
need to play around with as 
many tools as possible: not so 
for me. I have found after 20 
years’ experience that, very 
often, the simpler design can 
be the most pleasing. 

ArtWorks is a very fast 
drawing package and is a tool 
that anyone can use to produce 
high quality artwork. 

Walter .1 Briggs 
County Down 

Being artistically challenged, 
we were pretty impressed 
with the peregrine shot. Still, 
you know what they say: 
Rome wasn’t huill in a day. 

NOT SO ORGANISED? 

Ian Burley’s review of 

Knowledge Organiser 2 in the 
June issue, though broadly fav- 
ourable, is in danger of wish- 
ing second-rate PC text 

retrieval software onto the Rise 
OS platform. 

Almost without exception 
these packages automatically 
compile global indexes of 
almost all word occur- 
rences, and then 

allow you to 
'search' for 
text 
items 
indexed 
to these 

words. 
However, 
the 


Paul Harvey 
Byte Back 

33 King Henry’s Mews 
Enfield Lock 
Middlesex 
EN3 6JS 


speed of 
retrieval is 


age of eight-bit machines has* 
for very obvious reasons, 
dwindled compared to the 


pure illusion, 
because most of the 
word occurrences in text 
are insignificant. 

Yes, KG2 unapologetically 
obliges you to adopt a more 
intelligent approach - as does 
any important software genre. 
Its learning curve is no steeper 
than that required for. say, 


v 


Draw or Impression, but the 
rewards far outweigh the draw- 
backs in terms of fast, accurate 
and thorough retrieval. 

Measuring KQ2 against a 
PC yardstick does not, in my 
opinion, qualify as serious 
attention. Text retrieval, when 
it works, is every bit as excit- 
ing as the more visually or 
musically-oriented software, to 
which you devote far more 
time and space. 

Sean O f Conaill 
KOI creator and designer 

Ian Burley replies: ‘There is 
always a trade-off between 
sheer convenience and ulti- 
mate power and sophisti- 
cation. KOI requires a lot of 
dedication to build up a 
decent database. The 
“second rate PC text retrie- 
val systems” 1 referred to in 
the review can be installed 
and enable you to find any 
occurrence of, say, 44 tf02” on 
your hard disc in a matter of 
minutes - and most of the 
work is done for you, 

4 Yes, KOI is much more 
powerful, but the alterna- 
tives are much easier to use* 
I’d like to have seen a 
combination of the two. For 
me, KOI is a bit like running 
before you can walk.’ 

PERSISTENT RENDERER 

I read your article 'Graphics 
Rendered Simple ’, and as a 
tracer-holic, 1 wish to advise 
others who are interested, but 
who cannot afford the com- 
mercial packages, of a PD 
package called Persistence of 
Vision Ray -tracer, or PoV Ray 
for short. 

It is the best 24-bit colour 
ray-tracer available in the pub- 
lic domain, and competes 
favourably with professional 
packages costing up to £2000 
on the PC. 

It has the advantage of hav- 
ing compatible versions 
available for Cray supercom- 
puters, Sun Sparc stations, 
Unix workstations, Macs, PCs 
and (running slowly) Ataris 
and Amigas as well. 

POV Ray is available from 
public domain libraries such as 
Arch Angel, [who you can 
contact on (0392) 422759]. 

Toby Bryans 

Wembley Park 


52 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 



Video and Graphics from Wild Vision 

Designers, manufacturers and purveyors of fine expansion cards 
for the Acorn range of 32-bit microcomputers* 

Wild Vision Digitisers 
Hawk V9 Mkll 

The ultimate real time colour video digitiser: in designing the Hawk V9 Mkll, Wild Vision have drawn on years of 
image capture expertise for the Acorn platform. State-of-the-art technology provides hardware processing 
capabilities unique to the Hawk V9 Mkll, ensuring you get the image you want. Plus, high quality software is provided 
enabling still images to be grabbed in a variety of formats, including greyscale. Whether you need images for Art, 
for DTP or for presentations, chances are you need the Hawk V9 Mkll. Price £269.00*' 

GreyHawk 

Wild Vision’s DTP 1 video digitiser! GreyHawk is the ideal image capture medium for DeskTop Publishing work. 
Coupled with Computer Concepts’ ScanLight Plus application, GreyHawk offers true 8-bit greyscale video digitising 
in real time. Processing options include, blur, sharpen, rotate, crop , and a host of other operations. The perfect 
compliment to Wild Vision’s colour digitiser range, GreyHawk has been designed and manufactured using the latest 
technology. It offers 256-greyscale functionality without compromising on performance or flexibility. GreyHawk is 
also excellent value at an introductory price of only £99.00** 

Wild Vision Genlock and Overlay 
Chroma-Genlock 

Calling all budding Spielbergs! Unleash your creativity! Wild Vision’s Chroma-Genlock lets you superimpose computer 
graphics onto video to achieve effects like captions, credits and animation. A software application, ISideShow, is 
included with the genlock card to enable you to overlay text, drawfiles and sprites created in !Draw. The card is also 
compatible with other software titles. Suitable for use with all Acorn 32-bit machines* 1 Price £215.00** 

Wild Vision Graphics 
ColourCard 

Graphics handling that no-one should be without. ColourCard offers more speed, more colours, more resolution 
and less screen flicker. It is suitable for Archimedes 300/400/500 series machines *, the A5000 and A3000. Screen 
update speed is configurable to 12 or 24 Mhz, broadcast resolution PAL modes are provided for your video needs, 
and 32000 colour modes provide excellent preview facilities. All this on one card - at one price. £249.00** 

The above cards have all been designed and manufactured to comply fully with Acorn specifications for expansion cards. 

In particular, please note that the GreyHawk, in contrast to some other low-cost digitisers, has been crafted to these 
specifications and meets the very highest standards of production. Software for all the above products has been developed in 
conjunction with Computer Concepts . 

• Excluding the A4 computer 

** Price excludes carriage and VAT 
t DTP: Digitising to Perfection! 

Early machines may need a genlock header fitting - see your local dealer for details 
Also available from Wild Vision 

0 Chroma 150 PAL encoder unit: record your computer output to video £185.00** 

• A3000 Expansion Box: use up to three Archimedes expansion cards with your A3000 £139.00** 

0 Hawk VI 2 Video Framestores: convert your Archimedes into a high performance image processing and analysis 

system .L.£ * * from £ 1 990. 00^ 

• ADC 1 208 range of analogue to digital converters: data acquisition tools for a variety of scientific applications 

from ..i. ...*£; *i ... .. .^: £560.00** 

0 Chroma 250/350 enhanced performance genlock cards £395.00** 

For more information on any of the above, contact Wild Vision 



WILD VISION 

15 Witney Way, Boldon Business Park 
Boldon Colliery, Tyne & Wear NE35 9PE 
/ England. 

Tel: 091 519 1455 
Fax: 091 519 1929 




FOR ETHERNET 


1MBH13 XOd 


Time taken to 
load these 
applications 
over on Acorn 
network 

Level 4 
Econet 

Level 4 
AUN 
Ethernet 

Ethernet 

with 

Netgain 

Seconds 

Seconds 

Seconds 

Artworks 

136 

87 

8 

Maestro 

15 

9 

3 

Pipedream 

20 

6 

2 

Squirrel 

35 

10 

2 


Netgain for Ethernet provides the fastest transfer rates of 
any network currently available on the Acorn platform. 
The product is designed to boost performance by huge 
margins when used in conjunction with Acorn's Level 4 
AUN fileserver on industry standard Ethernet. 

The only hardware required is an 
expansion card in the Netgain 
server, which would typically also 
run the Acorn Level 4 fileserver. 

No more than 64K of RAM rs 

TAKEN FROM ANY WORKSTATION. 
Standard Ethernet interfaces may 
be utilised. 

Typical transfer rate from a 
standard Ethernet system is 
approximately 2G0K/sec but Netgain achieves up to 
900K/sec. In addition to this transport throughput 
increase, intelligent caching and a general reduction in 
bottlenecks result in staggering reductions in load times 
for typical applications. 

The system manager simply copies their applications into 
the Netgain filer on the server, and from then on these 
products will automatically appear within the Resources 
directory viewer from the Apps icon on the icon bar, just 
as if the programs were in ROM. 


Time 

M 


?20s 



5 JO 15 

Number of VVorfe/afiortf 


Acorn Standard AUN 
AUN vdih Netgain hr Ethernet 



Simultaneous loading of Impression 
over on Ethernet network 


Server Pack £200.00 + VAT 

including Server Expansion Card and 
software for the first ten stations 

Additional 10 User Packs £ 100.00 + VAT 



9 Wayte Street, Cosham, Portsmouth 
Hampshire P06 3BS Tel 0705 210600 









DARRYL 
THE DRAGON 


Supplier: 4Mation 
Tel: (0271) 25353 
Price: £19.50 single copy, £30 
site licence, £10 for the 
] > U of ocop i a b 1 e p ac k 


The use of adventure games in 
infant classrooms to promote 
reading and creative writing is 
not a new concept: children arc 
happy playing heroes and 
heroines who venture into 


forests, climb cliffs, mix magic 
potions and solve logical 
problems in order to save 
others from fates worse than 
death. A new game called 



Danyl the Dragon 
gives young 
children ample 
opportunity to 
come to the 
rescue of 
Darryl who 
has a. sore 
throat and no 
a flames. 

The software is on 
two discs, the first of which is 
copy protected unless a site 



Darryl the Dragon is the new adventure game offering from 4Matlon 


licence has been bought, but 
I the company allows purchase 
| of extra key disesat £10 a time 
as an alternative. The manual 
is easy to read and contains a 
short story to get the children 
started, instructions on how to ' 
use the program and the 
answers for busy teachers. 
There are also suggestions for 
related work. The children's 
position can be saved at any 
time and teachers can preset 
i t hree 1 c ve l s of di ffi c u Ity , 


The first part of the i 
adventure requires children to 
help Darryl by getting some 
honey from the beehive for his , 
sore throat and some matches 
from a machine to light his 
flames again. Most of the 
problems they encounter are 
relatively easy and they are 
aided by a simple map. The 
writing on each screen is short 
and easy to read but younger 
children will inevitably need to 
have help. Further controls are 


available and teachers can 
choose which font and size of 
text will appear. 

Having soothed his throat 
and rekindled his flames, we 
then have to rescue Darryl* s 
fireproof handkerchief from 
the nasty wizard. This involves 
a visit (or lots of visits if you 
keep going wrong) to the 
wizard's castle. There arc a 
number of rooms to go into, 
locked doors to open, problems 
to solve and hazards to 
overcome in order to get 
Darryl's essential piece of 
property back for him. 

This is an easy game for 
infants to play, the screen 
graphics are colourful and 
move fast, but the feature that 
finally sells it to me is the pack 
of photocopiable resources 
available to support the 
adventure. This pack includes 
Giants Monthly, mllamrn- 
ability charts, a Happy Valley 
School for Dragons Report and 
a host of other material that 
goes with each aspect of the 
game. It will keep children 
busy and teachers happy for 
some time. 

Clare Johnson 


AMAZING MATHS 

Supplier: C a m b rid gesh i rc 
Software House 
Tel: (0480) 467945 
Cost: £19.95 + vat, primary 
school site licence £39,90, 
secondary school site licence 
£59*85 

If your children enjoy video 
games and need help with 
simple arithmetic problems, 
then Amazing Maths is for you. 
Moving around a grid, each 
obstacle generates an arith- 
metic question which has to be 
answered correctly before yon 
can move on. 

The game is based on a 
series of fifteen grids, each of 
which is more complex and is 
reached via a staircase from 
the previous floor. Each Ho or 
has walls and gates separating 
you from objects, including 
power crystals, which you 
might wish to collect and these 
can only be passed by 
answering a question correctly. 
However, if you get a question 
wrong you lose a crystal, and if 1 
you don’t have any crystals 


you arc out of the game. It is 1 
also important to collect jet 1 
packs which allow you to jump 
the wall. So far, all you need to 
do is answer the questions but 
hidden from view is a demon 
and if you land on this you get i 
five questions. You can avoid 
this by collecting magic eyes 
that can be used to see where 
the demon is hiding, but you 
can only use each eye once. 


One of the best features of 
this software is the amount of 
flexibility it allows in setting 
up the problems. The type of 
question can be set to include 
only the arithmetic functions 
you wish to test and you can 
turn the demon feature off as 
well. It is then possible to set 
the number range into which , 
the questions w ill fall. You can 
also set the number of levels I 



Amuzing MaUiS : Level 3 


Crystals : I 


Power Packs 


Amazing Maths 


Marik _l9 


Move around Amazing Maths with the on-screen or keyboard cursor keys 


that the children face. There is 
the mandatory highest score 
table for all good games and 
the highest ten scores are 
recorded on disc. Positions can 
be saved at any time and since 
the software is fully Rise OS- 
compatibie, screens could be 
printed out and used to make 
supporting worksheets. The 
game can be run directly from 
a Concept Keyboard or a touch 
screen and an overlay is pro- 
vided with the pack. 

Pressing the Menu button 
over the icon shows even more 
options. These include turning 
off the sound, ft is also poss- 
ible to set the time delay which 
controls the number of seconds 
pupils have to answer a ques- 
tion. The font used is large and 
easy to read but this can also 
be changed i f desired. 

This software gives great 
teacher control, is fun for 
children to play and could gen- 
erate classroom activities. 
Aimed primarily at Key Stage 
I pupils, it should also appeal 
to special needs and the lower 
stages of Key Stage 2. 

Clare Johnson 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 55 



Since its launch at last year’s 
Access IT conference, the 
Oak Solutions’ ClassNet 
Ethernet interface has 
proved to be one of our 
most successful products. 

A very large number of schools around the 
count!}' are buying complete rooms of computers 
and require a networking system to interconnect 
them. ClassNet offers the benefits of using standard 
Ethernet components whilst remaining familiar to 
anyone who lias used an Econet in the past. 

Over the last few months there have been three 
major developments to ClassNet; combined 
ClassRom and ClassNet interfaces, the new 
ClassShare II software and network' interfaces for 
A3020 and A40O0 computers. 


Hie new interfaces provide a user of a hard disc 
machine with the ClassRom protection and 
management system for the hard disc combined 
with access to a fast Ethernet, Hus is an ideal 
solution for A4000/5000 computers in an 
educational context. Haul discs give the best way 
of loading applications. Each user has direct access 
to their own hard disc which means that they get 
the highest possible loading speeds ClassRom 
ensures that users cannot delete or move files from 
the hard disc but does allow the users to load 
them, Tlie ClassRom Management software means 
that several computers can be updated 
automatically over the network whenever new 
software is added or deleted by the network 
manager. 

The new ClassShare II software is an extremely 
fast disc sharing system for users of ClassNet 
networks. If you have small clusters of computers 
w hich do not have their ow n hard discs then one 
way of loading applications is over the network. 
The Level 4 file server offers one system of loading 
applications but the performance is not as good as 
it could lie. ClassShare II takes the performance of 


an Ethernet to new extremes. Users can share the 
hard disc of another computer, exploiting the 
bandwidth of the network to the full, with 
performance almost as fast as using local hard 
discs. In fact, each user sees a hard disc icon on 
their icon bar representing the hard disc of the 
computer being shared. This means that the 
children can use any computer in the same w ay; 
they don t have to leam a different system for 
machines with hard discs and machines on the 
network. 

The launch of the A3020 and A4G00 saw the 
introduction of yet another style of interface socket 
for Acorn 32 bit computers; the networking 
interface. This has meant that we have had to 
design a third type of ClassNet Ethernet card. Hits 
is now complete and should lie available during 
the summer, ready for the autumn tenm. By using 
this style of interface rather then the A3000 style 
minbpodule. A3020 and 4000 useis will not use up 
their only podtile slot* The new ClassNet card will 
support both ClassRom and ClassNet software, 

ClassNet cards cost £149 (education) 
ClassNet' Rom cards cost £179 (education) 
Bulk discounts available on request 
ClassShare II costs £149 (upgrade £10 per 
card plus £35 for the software) 


What can an Ace ProDriver do for me? 


Standard Deskjet 500C Driver 


Deskjet 500C ProDriver 


Ca ^ 
Ace 

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EDUCATION RLUS 





r ;uww<CKhi«i i5$T.ffft' 


Couard, Heel 1899-1973 


Hng tiUi pbj 
and 

he wrokarn 
I ever 1 925, 
Blithe Spini 
Coward liIvli 
1942 und t3n| 
niRhiefej^g 


E kh We Sen 
tv came j 
1 1: rtjj. Il^hmc 


Spee; : PICTURE : Coward Hoe J ; in' Buckingham 
playj Palace to receive his knighthood. 

_ ;,Z Imn.l SQUNP: Newel Coward 1M6-41: Speech 
at the opening night of his play 
Irial [Blithe Spirit in Manchester [1 min, 53 

li>-i- \m 


HUTCHINSON 

MULTIMEDIA 

ENCYCLOPEDIA 

Supplier: Attica Cybernetics 
Tel: (0865) 791346 
Price: £149 + VAT (users of 
the Dos- based version can 
upgrade for £75 + VAT from 
Cumana Ltd, tel: (0483) 
503121) 

As the first multimedia ency- 
clopedia written specifically 
for Rise OS, this CD-Rom is 
something of a landmark: it 
has over 1500 photographs, 
maps and illustrations and in 
excess of 250 sound clips to 
hand. The number of textual 
entries is over 27,000, organ- 
ised into six major subject 
areas, ranging from places, life 
sciences and technology, to 
history, aspects of society and 
the arts. Unlike its printed 
counterpart, the beauty of the 
Hutchinson Multimedia Ency- 
clopedia is that ii provides 
ways of searching for informa- 
tion which are simply not 
possible with books. 

In its previous incarnation 
the Hutchinson ran off a Dos 
CD- Rom with a primitive Rise 
OS front-end and thus was 
painfully slow in operation. 
The fact that it was primarily 
text-based meant that it was 
rather uninspiring as well. I 
was able to test the latest CD- 
Rom with one of Cumana' s 
excellent new 600 series drives 
and it proved easy to install 
and get it going on an A5000. 

The encyclopedia comes 
equipped with a disc of retrie- 
val software which loads onto 
the icon bar. Clicking on this 
opens the contents page, title 
list and tool bar. The contents 
page offers the six subject 


ci or 


"ME! 


o£3 


Title list 


abacus 

Abel, Frederick Augustus 182? 
Abel, Hiels Henrik 1802-1829 
flberfan 

aberration of starlight 
aberration, optical 
abrasive 
abscissa 

absolute value, or modulus 




j vikings 




Page 

Display 


Mto 


To access information you can select a 

areas and a choice of method 
for carrying out the search. 
The title list contains an 
alphabetical list of all the 
entries in the encyclopedia, 
whilst the tool box provides 
the application's control panel. 

From the contents page you 
• can choose the volume you 
, wash to search. When this is 
loaded, the title list is updated 
and you can select an entry or 
type into a text field. In either 
case the relevant information 
window opens displaying tex- 
tual data, and/or compressed 
images and a sound button. 
The text may contain high- 
lighted words or phrases which 
lead to and from linked arti- 
cles, whilst images (sprites) 
may be enlarged to a pre- 
selected size. If an audio sound 
clip is available, clicking on 
the sound button plays it. 

The real power of the system 


heading from the title list or type in the word you want to search for 


The Hutchinson has photographs and illustrations but no moving video clips 


I becomes apparent when using 
the tools available from the 
' tool bar. Here you can move to 
i and from succeeding and pre- 
, ceding articles; move up and 
j down stacks of articles; and 
, return to the one you started 
with. Also available are single 
word and complex searches. 
The former looks for a solitary 
word or phrase while the latter 
makes use of logical operators 
(AND, NOT, OR) to track 
combinations of words or 
phrases. The result is always 
the same, regardless of the 
type of search, and the soft- 
ware sifts through the disc and 
compiles articles which con- 
tain the search criteria. The list 
can then be narrowed down by 
further searches. 

Where computer-based re- 
sources score over printed 
materials is in their ability to 
extract information for a 
specific purpose. The Hutchin- 
son Multimedia Encyclopedia 
is no exception. Complete arti- 
cles, tables and marked blocks 
of text can all be saved for use 
in other Rise OS applications. 
Similarly, images can be saved 
as Rise OS sprites or as 
‘Device Independent Bitmaps’ 
- a means of transferring an 
image to other hardware plat- 
forms. With the exception of 
DIBs, all items can be saved to 
other desktop applications or 
to disc. Text and graphics can 
also be printed directly from 
any screen, providing a suit- 
able primer driver is installed. 


so the encyclopedia offers a 
prime source of information 
for school projects. The level 
of language and its present- 
ation make the resource most 
suitable for Key Stage 3 and 4 
, pupils or adults. 

The problem with a CD- 
Rom application as broad as 
this is the compromise be- 
tween the detail and quantity 
of information offered. What 
the Hutchinson sets out to do it 
does very well but I found it 
I rather dry. There are no mov- 
ing video clips to enjoy and the 
• sound clips are not extensive. 

To my mind, these are funda- 
! mental to multimedia. 

If this encyclopedia was a 
compilation of six CD-Rom 
volumes, one for each of the 
subject areas, then perhaps 
i more space would have been 
available for movies, sound 
clips and extra information. 
This would make the whole 
thing more entertaining. 

Conclusion 

However, as it stands, the 
Hutchinson Multimedia Ency- 
clopedia provides a depend- 
able source of information 
1 with fast search and retrieval 
| software, and it certainly repre- 
, sents a big step forward from 
the original Dos-based version. 
To run the encyclopedia you 
need Rise OS 3.1, l Mb Ram, 
SCSI interface with CDFS 2,1 
or later and a CDFS CD-Rom 
drive. 

Chris Dr age 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 57 



SUPERIOR SOFTWARE 

ACORN A3000, A3010, A3020, A4000, A5000 & ARCHIMEDES 












REPTON 3 - Four game compilation 

Four of the most [X>pul<ir strategy games ever produced for 
Acorn computers in one great value-for-money package. 
Rcpton 3, Around The World In 40 Screens, The Life Of 
Repton and Repton Thru Time - with choice of four tunes 
and a position Save/Recall facility, plus easy-to-use screen 
and character design and editing facilities. 

£24.95 (inc VAT) 


ZARCH 

David Braben, co-author of ELITE, has harnessed the speed 
and performance of the ARCHIMEDES to create a 
programming masterpiece. You control a hoverplane, 
equipped with a laser cannon, smart bombs and homing 
missiles, over a massive 3-dimensional landscape*, w ith 
realistic area shading and accurate perspectives. 

£19.95 (incVAF) 


EGO: REPTON 4 

Ego, the wisest of all the Repton family, now presents the 
cleverest and most puzzling of all the Repton games. There 
are a massive thirty levels of play. In each level you have to 
build up a jigsaw' puzzle of a famous personality or place by 
collecting the pieces scattered around. 

However, it's not quite that easy! You have to carefully 
manoeuvre your way around using various Conveyers and 
Transporters, and a lot of cunning strategy. You collect the 
Gems as you move around, whilst dodging the deadly 
Androids, but what do you do with the Towers, Trees, 

Grass, Mushrooms and Holes? 

" Repton 4 is challenging , good value for money and well 
graded. What more can I say i" 

...Acorn Computing (Jan. 93) 

£24.95 (inc VAT) 


SUPERIOR GOLF 

The complete golfing game for 1 to 4 players, designed 
exclusively for the ARCHIMEDES. Realistic gameplay 
with a choice of six courses (St Andrews, The Belfry, 
Victoria and three Sea Palms courses), plus Driving 
Range and Practice Green. Full feature hole and course 
design and editing facilities. 

£1 9.95 (inc VAT) 


THE LAST NINJA 

You must use swords, nunchakus and shiraken stars and 
solve many devious puzzles in over 140 action-packed 
screens. From the dangerous wastelands and magnificent 
gardens, to the direst dungeons and the final confrontation 
in the Inner Sanctum of the Shogun's palace. 

You cannot fail... you are The Last Ninja. 

A graphically brilliant conversion, using the full screen and 
256 colours, of one of the most popular and highly rated 
games ever produced for home computers. 

"There's a great big nasty at the end of each level. The 
solution is never a matter of fighting, it always rerjuires 
some astute thinking. The Last Ninja is a great game - go 
silently and leave no witnesses " 

...Micro User (Aug. 92) 

£24.95 (inc VAT) 


MASTER BREAK 

A snooker-style trivia quiz for 1 to 4 players. Over 2000 
questions on SCIENCE & NATURE, POP MUSIC, 
GEOGRAPHY, SPORTS & PASTIMES, ARTS and 
HISTORY. Digitised pictures include: sport and pop stars, 
famous places, animals and w'orld leaders. Amusing and 
educational. Can you get the maximum break of 147? 

£19.95 (inc VAT) 


BBC Micro, BBC Master 128, Master Compact and Acorn Electron 

Please note that we have a massive range of games available for these computers, including 
several compilations. Watch out for PLAY IT AGAIN SAM 18 (Holed Out, Citadel 2, Nevryon 
and E-Type). Coming soon! 

Write to the address below or phone for an illustrated list of all our titles for these computers. 


TECHNODREAM 

At last, the action-packed sequel which everyone has been 
waiting for! Now, in addition to a 1 player option, you can 
choose to have 2 players simultaneously. Now, in addition 
to horizontal parallax scrolling, there is vertical scrolling to 
give a much enlarged playing area. 

There are 18 increasingly fiendish stages, with brilliant 
arcade-quality graphics and massive animated sprites, plus 
digitised sound effects and 6 atmospheric pieces of stereo 
music. Control by keyboard or joysticks (Acorn A3010 or 
RTFM). 

* Technodream's action gets so fast and furious tlie screen 
looks like an abstract painting. A highly polished product 
and well worth the asking price of £25. " 

...BBC Acorn User (May 93) 

£24.95 (inc VAT) 


PLAY IT AGAIN SAM 1 

Four top quality, classic games... 

...for the price of one! 

Conqueror - The classic and highly realistic tank simulation 
game. Control up to 1 6 German, American or Russian tanks 
from World War 2. Arcade, Attrition or Strategy games. 

Rotor - The widely praised strategy and action game. 
Manoeuvre the Rotor in 1 8 deadly missions into enemy 
fortresses. Destroy their defences as you steal ammunition. 

No Excuses - Fifty levels of nerve-tingling excitement as you 
obliterate the grotesque aliens. Plus an easy-to-use designer 
to produce your owti fiendish levels. 

Hostages - Commando action and strategic planning as you 
rescue the hostages from the besieged Embassy. Realistic 
graphics and animation. 

£24.95 (inc VAT) 


AIR SUPREMACY 

In this unique game, you can swap between air and 
ground/sea forces as the battle develops. Practise with the 
biplanes and tanks of 1918 Europe, the fighters and 
gunboats of the Pacific 1944, and the guided missile jets 
and desert tanks of the Gulf 1991 . Then to 2150 and the 
final challenge! 

"The sense of Sf)eed when flying around is excellent. 
Skimming along the ground in a stealth fighter is 
particularly fun . " 

...BBC Acorn User (Dec. 91) 

"The ultimate dogfighting game - will take weeks of 
intensive play to complete - sinks its hooks into you and 
doesn't let go." 

...Archimedes World (Dec. 91) 

£24.95 (inc VAT) 


SPEECH! 

Give your computer a voice with this high quality speech 
synthesiser, which is both easy to use and very flexible. It 
can directly speak words you input or text files, or you can 
use phonetic input to add stress/intonation, S[)eak foreign 
languages or e^ven sing! An easily modified spelling 
program is included. 

£24.95 (inc VAT) 


(Superior Software is a trading name of Superior Microcomputing Ltd.) 

Dept. 1 , P.O. Box 6, Brigg, South Humberside DN20 9NH. Tel: (0652) 658585 


PLEASE MAKE CHEQUES 
PAYABLE TO SUPERIOR SOFTWARE." 



24 HOUR TELEPHONE 
ANSWERING SERVICE FOR ORDERS 


OUR GUARANTEE 

• All mail orders are despatched by first- 
class post 

• Postage and packing is free 

• Discs that are faulty on receipt will be 
replaced immediately 

(This does not affect your statutory rights) 





GAME SHOW 



I t is time to do some Hard 
Drivin* round ilie Acorn cir- 
cuits. Games fans will know 
the arcade car game well, as it 
was easily the most popular 
machine a few years ago* 

The game was ported onto 
many computer formats too, 
but nothing for the Acorn 
range* Now The Fourth 
Dimension is test driving its 
latest game, provisionally 
tilled Stunt Driver * 

The basics will be the same: 
3D graphics, a view from 
inside the car and so on, and 
many of the stunts will be fam- 
iliar. In Hard Drivin \ drivers 
revved a rally car round a stunt 
or race track, aiming to beat 
the clock, performing jumps, 
Joop-the-loops and the rest. 
There are two main differ- 
ences though. An excellent 
bonus for Stunt Driver will be 
a two-player feature so a friend 
can race alongside you round 
the stunt track - and if that's 
not considered dangerous I’m 
a banana. The other difference 
is rather bizarre* As if your 
maniac friend trying to bump 
you off half way round the 
loop- 1 he- 1 oop w asn ’ t bad 
enough, you will have to avoid 
humongous mallets which pop 
out of the ground and try to 
squash your car. And that’s 
only one of the totally -wired 
obstacles you will meet. Watch 
out for this game. 

Enthusiastic new software 
house TBA Software, which 
launched itself with the abys- 
mal Breakout-clone Dragon - 
ball , and followed with the 
excellent shoot -e m- u p maze 
game Axis? has two more 


Urk! That was a near miss! Half an inch off the target with the axe and the game is lost. This short and simple 
pastime is a sub-game to be found in the Viking roleplaying game Heimdall from Krisalis Software. It Is used to 
determine character attributes before the main game is played and there are two other similar subgames. 


games in the pipeline. The first 
is Psycho Squadron, a 
vert ica 1 1 y- sc ro 1 ] mg shoo t- c ro- 
up with an extended battle area 
and bonus rounds. As well as 
the usual power-ups, pilots can 
collect extra wingships to hype 
up their fire power, and there is 
also a training programme for 
new pilots, 

[Meanwhile, levitation is the 
name of the game in TBA*s 
other game, Free Run , which 
will be released under the 
Powerstation label. Free Run- 
ners pilot small anti-gravity 
skimmers at breakneck speeds 
around race tracks on several 
different planets in pursuit of 
the System Championship 


News nugget 


Within the next few weeks, high street charnstores such as Boots, John 
Menzies, Tandy and Dixons wifi find themselves swamped with Acorn 
games. A proliferation of popular titles such as Lemmings and Zool is set 
to revolutionise the sale of Acorn games, which up ti If now has been 
dominated almost entirely by mail order. 

The reason is that Centre Soft, the massive distributor for Amiga 
software, which also owns US Gold, is dipping its toe into the Acorn 
market and the result will be that Acorn games are as easy to come by as 
Sonic the Hedgehog. 


prize. The game features 
Rota Vision, which is TBA’s 
3D distortion routine to allow a 
first-person view of the mas- 
sive sprite -based race tracks. 
Like Axis, Free Run includes 
an enhanced version for com- 
puters fitted with the faster 
processor chip* Arm3, and also 
for the Arm 250. Both Psycho 
Squadron and Free Run will be 
available mid-summer. 

Gamer’s upgrade 

The growing zeal of Acorn 
users for joysticks and joystick 
utilities has gone to an extreme 
in which the joysticks them- 
selves are now growing out of 
the computer (so to speak)* 
The latest joystick interface 
caters for four separate sticks 
but first you have to solder it 
directly onto the computer’s 
internal RGB board. Feek! 
Sounds dodgy. But, says Matt 
Black, the company selling 
Gamer’s Upgrade (for £27.99 
+ £2 p+p): It sounds hard but 
it isn't in practice. It is very 
simple and straightforward.’ 
The advantage of this D1Y 


I c 


method is that the computer’s 
expansion ports are kept 
vacant and so the joystick 
interface, which supports two 
independent fire buttons, 
becomes a permanent fixture, 
without switching and 
plugging. However, Acorn 
Computers has responded cau- 
tiously saving users who solder 
anything inside their computer 
would almost certainly invali- 
date their warranty. 

Winners 

There were bagfuls of entries 
to the Battle Chess competition 
in the May issue but only five 
could win a copy of the 
s ad i st ica 1 1 y - v io lent 3 D che ss 
game fro m Krisal i s S o f t w are , 
They are Adrian Emery 
from Sandy: Chris Bell from 
Walsall: Robert Newman from 
Cambridge; Matthew Kearns 
from Sheptnn Mallet; and DJ 
Cot leu from Yelverton, Devon. 

The correct answers were as 
follows: 1. Nigel Short, 2. John 
Cleese {not Michael Palin, he 
isn’t as funny), 3. White 
square* 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 59 




GAM 



Quark preview 

Supplier: Oregan 
Tel: 021-353 6044 
Machines: 3 2 - hit 
Price: £24.95 



Quark is a shoot-em-up that is 
so new they haven't even fin- 
ished it yet. However, Oregan 
sent us a copy to evaluate that 
is so close to the final version 
that there are only one or two 
minor differences. More about 
those later. 

Although they have a speci- 
fication superior to virtually all 
their rivals. Acorn machines 
have always been thin on the 
ground when it comes to 
decent games. A relatively 
recent move by Acorn into the 
European market has seen a 
few games from across the 
Channel making their way 
onto screens in Britain, 


Aldebaran showed what is 
possible on 32-bit machines, so 
will Quark (from France inci- 
dentally) make a similar mark? 
We were lucky enough to get 
hold of a preview copy to see 
ihe game developing. 

Oregan is one of the new 
games houses producing soft- 
ware and its latest release 
1 I looks set to satisfy ail 
1 1 those fans of the 'shoot 

now, ask questions 
JBi later' genre. Quark 
is a shoot-em-up 
HU in the 
sense 

word; things Oy 

down the screen and 

you shoot up at them. Nothing 
could be simpler. 

The game is big and there- 
fore comes on two discs. The 
main bulk of the disc storage is 
used to hold level data and so 
the program itself will work 
quite comfortably on a 

standard 1 Mb computer. Load- 
ing Quark is simple: just a case 
of double-clicking on the game 
icon as usual. 

Once loaded, you are pre- 
sented with a suitably -drawn 
title screen, after which you 
move on to a set of two control 
panels. From here you can 
select either a one- or two- 
player game and what sort of 
ship you wish to control, plus 
the types of shields you wish 
your ship to have. 

In both cases, selection is 
made by moving a rather 
ghoulish-looking hand over the 
required panel and pressing 



Igf? 


v >rt .... j? 

■ Jfr 1 , rP 

imm 

A Hr 

y+g ipf / N iwp 



Quark doesn't get really tricky until you get onto the higher levels... like level two 



I If you arc fortunate to pick 
off one of the larger aliens, a 
I bonus token appears which can 
' be picked up for extra points, 
I or for enhancements to your 
l ship. Extra fire power, repairs 
I to your ship and increased 
manoeuvrability are all poss- 
ible if you collect the right 
tokens. Accumulating * extra 
fire power 1 tokens is especially 
I satisfying as the more you get, 
i the easier it is to blast away the 
| larger aliens. 

The main part of the game is 
I in what appears to be a 256- 
I colour mode, although because 
, it’s overscanned (the picture 
( reaches right to the edges of 
the screen), it's hard to tell. 
Good use is made of dithering 
colours to give the rolling 
landscape a sense of depth 
and the employment of 
highlighting adds to the 
overall effect. The first 
stage is set in a 
graphically-simple lunar 
terrain but further levels 


one of the bony fingers. All 
control is via two sets of pre- 
defined keys (one for each 
player) rather than the mouse, 
which is a strange choice as 
the hand is actually a pointer. 
These keys are used for con- 
trolling the ships and can be 
redefined to suit each player. 

There are five ships to 
choose from, each of which 
has its own particular charac- 
teristics. The main difference 
between the ships is the way in 
which each one fires at the 
enemy. The first ship, for 
example, fires large splodges, 

| making it easy to hit the small- 
I est of nasties. Another ship has 
I homing missiles which track 
any alien foolish enough to 
stray too near. 

The game is made 
up of six levels, 
each of which has 
its own particular 
set of nasties. On 
early levels (well.,, 
level one) dodging 
projectiles while trying to 
shoot down the extra- terres- 
trials is relatively easy. They 
‘ are all quite small and move 
around in a predictable way. 
Later on in the game (level two 
onwards) larger nasties appear 
from all sides of the screen and 
their shooting patterns are pre- 
cise, to say the least. 


take you over A /tec- style tem- 
ples and futuristic moon bases. 

Unlike some games of this 
type, there is nothing on the 
ground that you can actually 
bump into. This is particularly 
useful as avoiding the 
onslaught of aliens on later 
levels is a full-time job in 
itself. There arc gun -bases of 


sorts (more like stationary 
aliens really) although these 
can be destroyed quite quickly, 
before they inflict any per- 
manent damage. M 

hi keeping udth a game of^ 
this sort, the sonics are excel- 
lent. Explosions sound 
especially good when played 
through a nice big hi-fi. Other 
bangs, pops and whistles give 
the game added depth and bits 
of sampled speech 
crop up occasion- 
ally to add to the 
generally manic 
atmosphere. The 
finished version of 
Quark promises to 
have even more in 
the noise depart- 
ment. Also lacking in this pre- 
release version and to be 
included in the full game are: a 
rede fine- keys option, end of 
level nasties and - thankfully 
- a pause button. 

Apart from the fiddly con- 
trols when selecting your ship, 

I can find nothing to fault 
Quark. It’s certainly not the 
most original of games but as 
the saying goes: Tf it ain't 
broke, don't fix it. 5 

If you fancy a taster, look no 
further. You will find a demo 
of Quark on this month’s sub- 
scriber’s disc 

Sam Greenhill 



60 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 




NUW AVAILABLE 

ON ARCHIMEDES 


££ If you're a platform fan, you're not going to be disappointed Zoo I 
is fast, action packed, challenging and highly addictive, M 

THE SUN 


M Zool is, quite simply, a stunning game.PJ 

BBC RADIO 1 


M Spectacular, fast and smooth animation . 99 

THE TIMES 


RETAIL PRICE £25.99 


CC Zool is a massive arcade adventure with stunning gamepfay. W 

DAILY MIRROR 


£fi A great game and a zippy personality. SI 

SUNDAY OBSERVER 

If Zool is very impressive. It's fast and colourful with lots of twists, 
turns and things hidden from the player. ** 

DAILY STAR 


ARM 35 MHz 
Processor 

£175 incl. 

SILLY SUMMER SALE 
We pay your VAT! 

No carriage charge! 
Limited stocks Phone now! 

A5000 plug in 
4mb Upgrade 

£73 incl. 

A3 10 plug in 
4mb Upgrade 

£150 incl. 

A3104mb 
+35MHz 
ARM 3 

£300 incl. 

Uvipac 

Universal 

Error 

Eraser 

£10 incl. 

A5000 plug in 
base board 
Just 

£15 incl. 

Quantity 
discount 
please ask 

Teletext adaptor with latest page cache-ing 
software as described in June Acorn 
Computing. Mains powered. Heavy duty unit. 
Just £94, incl. software (only) £15 incl. 

3 GROUND CONTROL gg 

ELECTRONICS LIMITED 

HOURS OF BUSINESS: 9.00 AM - 5.30 PM (24 HOUR ORDERING FACILITY) 

PRICES EXCLUDE VAT. 8UT INCLUDE CARRIAGE CHARGES {UK MAINLAND) PACKAGING AND INSURANCE 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION TEL: 0635 524008 or 0622 833023 

UNIT 7, KINGFISHER COURT, HA MB RIDGE ROAD, NEWBURY, BERKSHIRE RG14 55J. 


ACORN APPROVED 

LONDON DEALER 

Wide range of software and hardware stocked 

ACORN AUTHORISED EDUCATION DEALER 


TEACHERS’ DISCOUNT SCHEME 
NOW AVAILABLE — PHONE FOR DETAILS 


Em*y to get to 

Train; WOOD ST Station 
(British Rail:) 

Road: Bottom of Mil, 

just off North Circular 


Tel No: O01-S21 1784 



AUTOMATIC SERVICES 
217 WOOD STREET 
WALTHAMSTOW 
LONDON E17 3NT 


KEYSTROKE 

Unbelievable POWER at your fingertips! 

Do you tire of all those unnecessary repetitive menu elections, wish that your favourite 

program had more Control key type short cuts? Or just tired of moving and resizing windows to the same 

position every lime you use a program! Well a revolutionary new utility has been developed for the Acorn 

Rise 05 machines. This program can actually remove all of those tiresome mouse dicks with just one key 

press! 

Believe it or not. Keystroke cart actually control any Rise OS program. Imagine a single key press lo 
perform ‘Group frames 1 tn Impression, perhaps set Text Repel' in a frame to a specific value or a quick 
key press to turn u frame to transparent colour! Clrl+T could bring up 'Paint tools window, FI to mourn a 
disc, FI I to bring up the task display, or F3 to save a file, or save the file automatically every 15 minutes. 
Keystroke can perform these and many more amazing things! KeyXtmke also comes with a "Buitonhar 
application that allows keystrokes to be used by clicking on an icon. Create your own toots window! 

Archimedes World - "damn defer, ctwytotixe. best of its kind 5 out of 5 !" 

There is just not enough room here to teli you about our program, send of f for our demo 
disc for £1.00 and see for yourself what you can do with this incredible program. 

Keystroke is suitable for all Archimedes running Rise OS 2-3,1 1 and is ottered for only £29.95 
fully inclusive. No VAT- 

Quanium Software, 35 Pincwand Park, UvingMun, EH54 KNN. Tel: 0506 41 1 162 alter 6pm. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 61 





Products 
designed & 
developed by: 


‘ ...programming at its best" - Atom User January 1993 
Continuing in the tradition of the immensely popular 

Tracker package, use Desktop Tracker to create fantastic 

tunes wilh no extra hardware. 

Desktop Tracker has been completely re-written to 

incorporate many new and innovative features: 

- lip !o 16 tracks 

- Fast piayroufines 

- 4 effects per note on each track, allowing up to 
64 simultaneously 

- Real time effects include pitch bend, arpeggio, volume 
slide, phasor effects, note retriggering ana many more. 

- Po we rf u I editing fa crl iti es, in c I u din g Ira ns p ose r c ut a n d 
paste, echo and more. 

- Score display allows you to see your tunes and samples 
in traditional slave notation formal. 

- Public Domain playroutines ond jukebox to allow tunes 
to be played on any machine. 


i'niiferl'firi &HSt|sfci' SKM 


Compatible with oil Acorn machines - plugs into the Parallel 
Printer Port. 

"Pulse 11 software provided includes the following editing 
features - fade in/fade out, over and under sampling, zoom 
in/zoom out, save and edit marked section, play forward or 
backwards at normal or high speed. 

Save in various file formats - Armadeus, Tracker, Sound 
Module. 


GO: Eng 069.00 


w ....a must for assembler programmers, and comes very 
highly recommended" Archimedes World May 1993. (overall 
rating 95%) 

QD Rug is the definitive debugger for all ARM coders both 
beginner and expert. It has many powerful features 
including: single stepping, skip ana force instructions, SWI 
history lists and trapping, customised flexible windowing 
system, view BASIC sources and text files from within the 
program, keypress emulation with macro record ond 
playback. 

Please contact us for further details on QD Bug. 


SCSI SysT&HTS 


Using High-Quality Conner, Quantum or Maxtor drives. 
All systems are CDFS ready and are Acarn compatible. 
Internal Systems (300/400/5000 series) 

85Mb + 1 6-bit fast SCSI card with userport - £289 
120Mb + 16-bit fast SCSI card with userport - £319 
213Mb + 16-bit fast SCSI card with userport £419 
Add £75.00 for external A300Q solution. 

Coil us for the latest prices - they could be lower! 


Includes all necessary cables and fitting instructions. 
Using High Quality Conner, Quantum or Maxtor drives 
170Mb £21 9 
250Mb £319 

Coll us for the latest prices - they could be lowed 


for more info. tSf 
ond orders contact; - 
VERTICAL TWIST 
Albany House 
Dvina React Chichester 
West Sussex P019 4BH 


mm 3SHftE£2t9 


Turbo charge your machine, capable of nearly 
15MIPS. A limited number only manufactured, 
so this offer is limited to stocks. 


Tel: (0243) 531194 
Fax: (0243) 531196 


Please add £9,00 delivery for hard drives 
and £2.00 for all other products. 

All prices exclude VAT 


hw/ilnriical Twist 


UleServe Of Hampshire 


UleServe 


COMPUTER 

SERVICES 


Authorised dealers for 
Canon. HR Citizen, 
PmmsQtiL, Star etc 


Archimedes 

A5000 L.C. 

A5Q00 2Mram 40M Hd Learning 
Curve S/w n i r\ a n 

& Monitor £1 049 


A5000 


A5QOG 2Mrem 40M r QQQ 
Hd ft Monitor 


A5000 Hard Disk 

Acont original 40Mb replacement 
Hand Disk £199 


A30GO 

Monitor Stands 

Acorn original r 1 a 

AKF 20 Stand t I y 


Archimedes 

Software Bar git is 


Desktop Pub. - Acorn 
Intardictor - Claras FS 
Lemmings - Psygnosis 
Pscrnania - Grand slam 

Superior Gold 

Trivial Pursuit Genus .. 
Eureka - Logotrcsn 5S 
Galactic Dan - 4th Dim. 
S pel Ima star on Disk ... 
Canon BJlO Turbo dr. 
Citizen Series 2 driver 


£49 
£14 
£18 
£16 
£13 
£14 
£109 
£21 
. £28 
£44 
£12 


A41 0 

A41Q 1 Mrfim £499 


A410 Hard Disk 
40Mb £199 


Bit Sticks 

Acorn Bit Stick 1 for BBC B 
or Master with BBC B only 
CAD software £59 


BBC B/Master Bargins 

Stack Light Pen £16 

Disk Drive Users Manual £7 
2 Rom Cartridge - Care £12 
2 Rom Cartridge - Acorn £1 1 
MB SOOO 64K rem > ban £39 

AMX type mouse £25 

8271 Disc Interface kit £45 
1 770 Disk Interface kit £45 
Basic U Rom Acorn £15 
InterBase - Comp. Cone. £39 


Archimedes 

We stock the full range of 
Acorn computers. Teachers 
and Educational Discounts 
are available on most Micros. 

We are aWe to match most 
offers on Acorn products and 
provide real customer service. 
First class customer service 
before & after sates try lb today 


Laser Printers 


Special Offers 


Canon LPB4 1/2M .. £475 
Panasonic KXP4410 £442 
Panasonic KXP4430 £579 
Laser prices exclude VAT 


Epson ELP8010 

1 Op pm Lpser 
| 7 only) 


£699 


OKI OL830 


Adobe PostScript 
Laser 8ppm 
(limited stocks) 


£789 


A410 Ram 

Upgrades ram by 
1 Mb eg. 1M TO 2M 


£25 


AH prices exclude VAT 


P*99* mOd 17.5% VAT 


Acorn Spares 


BBC B Exc VAT 

Power Supply unit £42 

Xeyboad £34 

Keryswrtch (white) £1 

Case top 6 bottom £19 

View 2.1 ROM onfy .£9 

Speech ROM only - £13 

TMS522Q Speech £13 

O S. 1.2 ROM ........ £12 

8271 controller £32 


Master 

Exc VAT 

Power Supply unit .... 

£58 

Keyboard ................ 

........ £59 

Keys witch (black) .... 

£1 

Case top & bottom .. 

..... £19 

Archimedes 

Exc VAT 

Aoom Mouse ........... 

£28 

Mouse cable 

£S 


Please phone tor full range 


8271 

disk controller chip 

£32 


SONY 

DISKETTES 

SONY branded 

(Siftttima wtirAftty) 

(100% cenilied error free) 

IQx 3.5' DSfiJOISStpi ...... 6-38 

50* 3.5" DSTOO 1 3fiHii - 27.60 

1 00x3-5 - 1 36io* 51 -00 

260x3,5" D&DO 1 35lpi 120,00 

Ikx 3.6" DS4XM35tpi 460 00 


DISKETTES 

SONY / DYSAN bulk 

(Nf&tfme warranty} 

1100% cert i lied error free) 

10x &S B DSfflO 135 tp ........ 5 06 

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Ik* 3.5" D$ra I35tpi ....... 323 00 

40 x 3 . 5 " Dak hOx v«th k 5 Ck .# 4 .67 

100x3.5" Owk box wrrhkKk . 6 36 
Carnage on 50 * disks £3,00 + VAT 


Phono for our 70 page catalogue. Pt#aS6 add 1 7.5% VAT to prices 
EDUCATIONAL AND GOVERNMENT ORDERS WELCOME 
All products haws a 30 day money back. 6 12 month warranty. 
Prices are subject to variation wnb out prior notification. 

Please phone for express clearance Of cheques. Credit APR 29 0% 
EaiabUsbod B yMrs 3 minutes from M27 Junction 1 1 . Free parking. 
Open 9 to 6.30 Monday to Friday 6 9 to 5 Saturday. Carriage, 'order 
Postage 80 p or £3.00 Secuneor £5-50 Securioor AM £10 + VAT 


UleServe 


Layor rtmxs dUrttm} 
tv Socuvor 


Acom/l>**r Dept. 
h 4<J-42 West Street 
Portchastar Hants 
P016 9UW 
Tei: 0705 647000 


UleServe Best for service 


Educational Specialist. Established 8 years. I Acorn Educational Dealer. Nationwide Servi 



















GAMES 



The A3010 Joymaster fooling your machine into thinking you are using the keyboard instead of a joystick 


A3010 Joymaster 

Supplier: The Leading Kclge 
Tel: (0532) 436300 
Machines: 32-bit 
Price: £19.99 

The Acorn A3G10 is a great 
games computer - after all it's 
got two joystick pons right? 
Not quite. Joystick ports they 
may be but the trouble is that 
most games written before the 
A3G1Q don't work with them. 
And, unfortunately, that means 
most games. 

Now The Leading Edge 
claims to have the answer to 
your problems. The name of 
this solution? The A 30 10 
Joymaster. 

The Leading Edge has a 
hardware joystick interface 
that has been around for a 
good number of years now but 
it has recently been upgraded 
so it will function correct iy 
with new style, bi-directional 
printer ports (such as the 
A5QOO t in fact). 

Now the same style software 
has been modified to help 
A3010 owners, who already 
have the joystick pons built in 
but need some software to 
make it all happen. 

The A SOW Jay Master pack- 
age consists of one disc and 
one manual. The disc comes 
with joystick files for nearly 60 
games but if, by remote 


chance, the one that you want 
to play isn’t on the list, there 
are no less than six appli- 
| cations which will help you to 
build a module to your own 
1 specification. 

The software works by 
detecting joystick movements 
and turning them into key 
presses so the computer thinks 
the player is using the key- 
board, For example, moving 
the joystick left might "press’ 

Z . Practically all games are 
totally oblivious to the fact that 
this Z did not actually come 
from the keyboard. 

The simplest way to pro- 
gram the joystick is to use 
JS_Tutor. This allows simple 
mappings between joystick 
movements and key presses to 
be set up. 

For the more adventurous 
you can use JSjComp. This 
compiles a module from a text 
file. The language used allows 
complex tasks to be set up: 
one. for instance, allows direc- 
tion movements to generate 
different keys if the fire button 
is held down. 

Another feature of the pack- 
age is that mouse movement 
and button state can be simu- 
lated, allowing you to control 
your desktop from the joystick 
if you so desire. 

Two internal flags are also ( 
available which can be used 
for all sorts of purposes such 1 


i as simulating rapid fire. An 
additional movement, the 
stir, is available to both 
JSJTutor and JSjComp. This 
is generated by rotating the 
joystick clockwise - the sen- 
sitivity of this can be adjusted 
to make it taster or slower - 
and is remarkably handy for 
selecting weapons or toggling 
maps on or off. 

If all this sounds a little 
daunting, the best thing to do is 
to take a look at one of the 
examples for a similar game 
and modify the source file as 
required for the game that you 
are going to use. 

You arc also given a lot of 
help including the module 
automatically into games. This 
can be quite tricky because of 
, protected discs but a number of 
i different options are available 
, and these seem to circumnavi- 
gate most of the problems. 

In conclusion, there’s not 
much to say really - it works. 
Many A3010 games players 
will jump at the chance to be 
able to use joystick control on 
all the old games. 

The A 30} 0 Joy Master is a 
high quality product. Better 
still, the tutoring programs and 
the programming language 
make it an exceedingly ver- 
satile utility. This is surely a 
must for any of you games 
nuts out there, 

Dave Lawrence 


Cheats 



Zool 

Trendy Zoo! is 
Sonic without the 
spikes, he's hip, 
he's happening 
and he‘s in trouble, stuck on a 
silly planet made from sweets 
(not so bad?) and all he can do is 
escape to a world of music where 
thumping great notes annoy him 
and violins shoot their bows. 

After that it just gets worse for 
poor Zool, star of the first of sev- 
eral blockbuster games from 
mega-games house Gremlin 
Graphics. 

Zoo! fan Rupert Revill from 
Sheffield has some ninja-tips. On 
level 1.1 there is a hidden Polo 
bonus to be found by punching 
out the bottom section of the 
first sheer wall Zool comes to 
after the second Hit button. Keep 
punching your way through to 
make a new passageway. 

Try the same thing on level 1.3 
at the first sheer wall you come 
to (wait until the time gets to 
below 50) and ZooJ will find some 
extra lives, bonuses galore and 
an alternative exit. 

Pipemania 

Flooozze! It 
ooozzes, it r s 
yukky, slimy, 
sticky and it's 
leaking. Plumber-to-the-rescu is 
the theme in the classic arcade 
strategy game Pipemania, 
recently sold on a compilation 
disc from Krisaiis Software. 

Your task is to pipe it, non-drip 
style, round the screen, making 
the pipe as long as possible 
before the flooze catches up. 
Tricky, very tricky. But not quite 
so tough if you know about the 
built-in cheats. 

Julie King from Sudbury, Suf- 
folk does, and she's sent word of 
how to get them. You need to be 
on the keys-redefining screen. 
Then you use the mouse to point 
and click at the letters on the 
keyboard diagram, in order to 
type these words. You follow this 
up with the RETURN key on the 
diagram. 

Try ROGUES, CREDITS, and 
VJR5YD (the letters to the right of 
'cheats') for three different hid- 
den routines. The cheats are all 
pretty obvious except 'Pipe Rota- 
tion': use the player two keys. 
Good luck and, more to the point, 
good plumbing. 



BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 63 






D I 



Ever bigger, ever better. See what we’ve squeezed onto the disc this month. And if you're 







Quark 


Morphing 


If you only needed one good reason to 
get hold of the subscriber's disc, the Acorn User Morphing 
| package has gut to be iL Morphing is the hippest special effect 
! around today, and now you and your Archimedes can get a 
piece of the action. 

Morphing is essentially a highly- sophisticated type of fade I 
from one picture to another, but it is so smooth that you can | 
really achieve some amazing animations. 

The example we couldn't resist is on the disc: Stevie Nicks 
morphing into Miss Piggy. Looking at the picture below hardly 
does justice to the way that Stevie's nostrils flare into Miss 1 
Piggy's perfectly-formed snout, but believe us when we say it's 1 
I highly amusing. 

Morphing works by combining tftree well-known effects, i 
inbet weening, image distortion and digital fading to create 
I smooth conversion from one 
i picture to another. The disc 
contains complete sprites and 
1 morph data for you to 
■ experiment with, along 
with full instructions on 
I how to use the three 
i morphing 

i applications: Morph , 

I Convert and 

I Animator. All you 
need now to create 
1 m i nd-be n d i ng and 
body- bending 
animations is 
artistic flair and a 
I little hit of time. 


Read the review and play the game, with 
this exclusive demo of Qregan's 
fantastic new shoot-em-up Quark. 

You can play a snippet of the first level of 
Quark* more than enough to blow your mind. And 
you can choose to play with a friend in two-player 
mode, you where you blow the hell out of numerous 
nasties, side by side. Collecting bonuses, murdering 
not-so-defenceless aliens: it's all in a day's work in Quark ♦ 
There's also a very special offer open to Acorn User 
subscribers; if you order Quark direct from Oregan, 
you will be offered the choice of a free gift worth £20, 
So what are you waiting for? Gel into the best shoot-em- 
up this side of the 3 2 -bit barrier. 




Basic 


Deep down, everyone wants to learn to 
program so they get the best from their 
machine. This month sees the launch of a new series which 
promises to teach Basic to everyone who has an Acorn. 

Of course, the subscriber's disc contains all the programs 
which are mentioned in the series, but these arc strictly for 
reference: if you really want to learn the ins and outs of 
programming, type them in yourself. Seasoned yellow pages 
fans will understand the challenge of typing in listings and 
making them work. 

Possibly the only article ever devised where having the 
subscriber's disc could be a disadvantage,,. 


j 


m 


*INFO 


Surely the most disgusting desktop application 
ever devised has to be Cockroach in this 
month's ♦INFO. For your delectation we present the desktop 
i demo to end all desktop demos: your very own family of | 
friendly cockroaches which scurry around the backdrop and , 
hide under windows. 

And that's not all. There's Fruit, the one-line fruit machine; 

, OnTime, a hack to display the time while the desktop is 
initialising; Fans* which displays some er..> fans: Engine* your 
1 definitive guide to the insides of the four-stroke internal 
combustion engine; and Dismount , to make mounting and i 
1 dismounting discs a breeze. And lots more. 




i 




64 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 







disc: 


RIBER’S DISC 

sick of missing out, just fill in the coupon at the bottom of the page and all this could be yours 



Cathedrals, 


houses and skyscrapers all ■ 
i make up the modern city, | 
i and our series on 3D 
1 Graphics has ’em alL 1 
! Don’t you wish architects 
1 had tools like this? See if I 
j you can do a better job 
than the town planners. ' 
1 Come to think 



I of it, you 
i probably 
' can. 




i 

i 

1 

i 

' 


i 


| 

1 


Since its 
inception in February of 
this year, modules for our 
general-purpose Bio 

application have been 
flooding in. In response to 
the flood, the authors have 
added a host of new 
features to the original Bio 
core, including sprite 
output and interactive help. 
The modules on the disc 
include HexDump (creates 
hexadecimal file dumps), 
3DGraph (draws 3D 
graphs). Sprite Sort (sorts 
sprites within sprite files), 
DrawSprs (pulls sprites out 
of Draw files), VATCaic 
(calculates VAT) and 
Word Count (counts words 
in files) and much more. 


J 

t 


j 

t 


( 

t 


J 






Letterheads 

i 



stationery 

Designing your own professional- looking j 
can make a huge difference to your , 


correspondence. Draw is an excellent tool for this, and all 
Rob Millers designs are available on the disc. Compliment 
slips, business cards, letters and logos - they’re all here. 



i 



Name.*. 


Address,**. 


*.,**..* **... *, * Postcode 

Please tick if you are taking out: 

□ A new subscription 

□ A renewal of a current subscription: 

I use the following machines: A3010 □ A3020 □ 

A4000 □ A 5 000 □ A540 □ A 3 000 □ A440Q 
A3 1 0 □ A410 □ Master □ BBC B J A4 □ 

Other (please specify) * 

Rates listed are valid until 31/8/93, The 3.5in disc is compatible with 
all Rise OS machines. The 5*25in disc contains all eight-bit programs. 
Subscription rates are listed opposite. 


' ' 





SUBSCRIPTION OFFER J I 

To receive BBC Acorn User every month, together with your free 
monthly disc, simply fill in the form below and send it to BBC 
Acorn User, Fulham House, Goldsworth Road, Woking, Surrey, , 
GU21 ILZ or call (0483) 727762, Your subscription will start with 
the next available issue* 

Subscription rates 3.5in disc □ £22,95 5.25in disc □ £22.95 

For details of overseas subscription rates, contact the address above 

BINDER OFFER 

'J Please send me binders at £5.95 each 

BACK ISSUES/DISCS OFFER 

Month Year □ 1992 □ 1993 

Maga zinc □ £ 1 *95 Discs I J £5 *95 (3,5 in ) 

Overseas orders add £1 ( Europe ) and £3 (rest of the World) 

I enclose a cheque/PO (made payable to BBC Acorn User) 
for a total of £ .**, **.,* 

Access/Visa card no. . . . . . ...... 

Signature* ****** Exp date. 

| 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 65 






A very powerful ana complete 

DESKTOP PUBLISHING SYSTEM 


at a lower cost than ever before... 




With the recent release of the BJ-200 inkjet 
printer it's possible to create a very powerful and 
complete desktop publishing system at a lower 
cost than ever before. We are bundling together 
the BJ-200, Impression Junior and Scan Light 
256 in a single package, called the Publishing 
Pack, all for less than £500. The Publishing Pack 
is ideal for educational desktop publishing or for 
the office at home. It provides all you need to 
produce top quality documents ■ you just supply 
the computer. 

We believe each of these products is best in 
its class and they complement each other 
perfectly. 

The BJ-200 prints at 360dpi , which means it is 
abie to reproduce top quality scanned images 
and text (practically Indistinguishable from a 
laser printer) and thanks in part to the 
TurboDrrvers it is also the fastest printer in its 
class. 

ScanLight 256 can capture photographic 
quality images and is supplied with software that 
provides image enhancement capabilities. This is 
the simplest way to get quality pictures into your 
documents. 


Impression Junior is part of the Impression 
family, which has become the most successful 
word process! ng/DTP program on the Archimedes. 
For the educational or 'office at home' user Junior 
is the 'deal combination of word processor 
capability and des Mop-publishing features. 

To make this package even more attractive we 
are giving Impression Junior free when you 
purchase the BJ-200 and ScanLight products 
together. Taking into account the discount we 
already offer on the BJ-200 primer, this means you 
can save over £200 on the recommended retail 
price fine VAT) of the individual components. Look 
at the standard prices and compare the total with 
our Publishing pack price. 

To see exactly what this combination is caoable 
of, piease 'phone for a sample page printea on the 
BJ-200, produced using Impression Junior and 
containing an example ScanLight scanned picture 
Full details are also available on the individual 
products. 

Finally, just in case you are not completely 
satisfied with the system, we offer a 14 day, no- 
quibble, money back guarantee. 


IL 



FOR THE ARCHIMEDES 


The normal MRRP of the products in 
the Publishing Pack: 

BJ-200 Printer. £329.00 

ScanLight — .»..£199.00 

Impression Junior.^.,^.„....X89.95 

Total £617.95 

VAT ... £108.14 

Total incl. VAT^.»m.m...««»..J726.09 

Our special bundle price: 

Publishing Pack ..„.„£475,00 

VAT.... J£83, 12 

Publishing Pack ind. VAT.„..£558.12 
Add £10.00 +VAT Carriage 


2Mbym HAM recommended Compatible with all Acorn 
computers. The ScanLight scanner requires an interface 
board to be hsiatted inside the computer - we can provide 
versions for at! Archimedes computers but piease specify 
which computer when ordering. 



Computer Concepts Ltd 


GADDESDEN PLACE HEMEL HEMPSTEAD HERTS HP2 6EX TEL: 0442 63933 FAX: 0442 231632 





HANDS ON 


Practical advice and techniques 
for your machine 


• Morphing 


• Basic programming tutorial 


• 3D graphics 


• Questions and answers 


• Star Info 


• Hints and tips 


• Program listings 


MORPHING 


Hands On 

Welcome to Hands On, the 
section that boldly goes where 
no hacker has been before. I'm 
serious; just wait till you see 
what we've got in store for 
you this month. 

The star attraction is a new 
application from graphics 
genius Robin Barnes, who 
brought us his rendering 
package in the June issue. 
You've seen morphing on the 
television, and with Acorn 
User's Morph package you can 
warp your mother-in-law into a 
gorilla in front of your very 
eyes. As Robin says: '1 didn't 
realise quite how addictive 
morphing can be/ You have 
been warned. 

Another new offering is the 
first part in our series on 
learning to program in Bask V. 
Every 32- bit Acorn machine, be 
it a lowly A305 or a lightning- 
fast A540, comes with BBC 
Basic: the series will teach you 
how to use this simple but 
powerf ul language so you can 
create your own programming 
masterpieces. If you want to 
contribute to the magazine but 
you can't program, or you 
want to get to know the 
insides of your machine in 
more depth, now you can. 

Our ever-popular application 
Bio has a few useful additions 
made to It, as well as more 
modules to use with it The 
enhancements include the abil- 
ity to output to a window and 
save the results as a sprite, and 
support for Acorn's Help appli- 
cation, The new modules 
include a 3D graph generator, a 
module to sort sprites in sprite 
files into alphabetical or num- 
erical order, and (on the disc) a 
Vat calculator. Keep sending in 
your own modules: there'll be 
more Bio extensions on offer 
next month. 

The third instalment in our 
series on 3D Graphics takes a 
look at polygon clipping to 
speed up the display of our 
virtual town, and how to cope 
with memory management for 
large numbers of objects. 

Along with Questions and 
Answers, Hints and Tips and 
the ubiquitous *INFO, it's a 
packed month here at Hands 
On. Live long and prosper. 

Mark Moxon 
Technical Editor 


Morph for less 

From Terminator 2 to pop promos, morphing is the special effect 
of the moment and costs millions... On the other hand you can 
get it free on our disc. Robin Barnes explains 



M orphing has become the trendies! film 
special effect in a long time. You see it 
everywhere: pop videos, television adverts, 
Hollywood films, even posters. 

Morphing converts one image into another, 
smoothly and seamlessly. The BBC recently 
used it in an advert in which famous BBC stars 
morphed from one to another, while sitting 
across a table from Griff Rhys-Jones, Possibly 
the most famous use of the technique was in 
Terminator 2, where the evil terminator robot 
morphs between its liquid metal form and nor- 
mal human appearance. That film cost millions 
to make, due to the cost of the hardware neces- 
sary to calculate the transformation from one 
person to another. 

Morphing applications have been available on 
platforms such as the Mac for some time, but 
there has never been one released for Acorn 
machines,., until now. Roll back the curtains. 
Acorn User is proud to present the first complete 
morphing package for the Archimedes, available 
only on the subscriber’s disc. 


How does morphing work? 

Morphing, as its name suggests, is the metamor- 
phosis of one object into another: the initial 
image into the final image. The method works 
by combining three well-known techniques used 
in computer graphics: inbetweening, image 
distortion and digital fade, 

Inbetweening is perhaps one of the oldest 
recognized computer animation techniques. By 
describing the start and end positions of a shape, 
the computer can interpolate between them to 
produce a smooth animation. This method is 
used to interpolate between two wire- frame 
objects in Draw, for example, and has been 
implemented on home computers for some time. 
Image distortion involves wrapping all or part 
of a picture onto a different shape by calculating 
where each pixel in the initial image appears in 
the final image. This technique does require 
quite a lot of processor power, so sprite distor- 
tion software has only really been practical on 
the latest breed of home computers. A good 


68 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 




MORPHING 


example of image distortion Is the Distort pro- 
gram from June's ♦INFO, where sprites could 
be mapped onto a sphere. 

Finally, the digital fade fades from one image 
to another by interpolating between the colours 
of corresponding pixels in the initial and final 
image. So, if a pixel in the first image was black 
and the corresponding pixel in the last was 
white, the fade changes the colour of that pixel 
from black, through the scales of grey, to white. 

Morphing puts these three effects together in a 
very simple and logical way. The first step is to 
describe the shape and specific features of the 
initial and final images; this is usually done by 
defining a wire frame mesh or a grid. Inbe- 
t weening the two meshes (which are wire -frame 
objects, after all) will then produce a smooth 
transformation of one mesh to another. 

Imagine that we need to calculate the image at 
a certain intermediate stage during the morph. 
Each mesh element encloses a section of the 
image, and the position of each pixel within the 
section at a certain stage can be found by image 
distortion. By finding which mesh element 
contains a specific pixel, and by finding the 
position of that element in the initial and final 
frames, k is a simple matter of mapping to find 
the corresponding pixel in the initial and final 
frames. Having found the position and the colour 
of the two pixels that contribute to the 
intermediate frame, the colour of the pixel can 
be found by using a digital fade. 

This process is repeated for each intermediate 
frame and each pixel in the image to produce the 
final morph. Animating these frames will then 
produce ihe complete animation. 

The morphing suite 

The system is made up of three applications: 
Morph , Convert and Animate . Morph is a lull 
multi-tasking desktop application which takes 
two sprites and morphs between the two accord- 
ing to a mesh. You define the position and shape 
of the mesh for initial and final sprites; anyone 
familiar with Draw wilt have no problems 
defining meshes in Morph . Meshes can be saved 
to disc, and a full example consisting of initial 
and final sprites (and a mesh) is on the disc. 

Morph creates a sequence of sprite files (the 
intermediate stages of the morph) ready for 
Convert. Convert takes these and creates a 
special movie file, which can he played in a 
desktop window by Animator* Movie files are 
sprites stored in a specially -com pressed format; 
the compression algorithm balances the needs 
for fast frame rate and high compression ratio. 

Depending on the complexity of the image the 
routine manages a compression of 30 to 40 per 
cent of the original size and expansion rates of 
1Mb per second on an Arm2. In real terms this 
means a 320 x 128, 256-colour sprite can be 
displayed at 25 frames a second; each second of 
animation occupies about 400K of memory. 

Get morphing 

Until I'd finished ihe program, l didn't realise 
how addictive morphing could be. Using a 
digitiser, or even a hand scanner, anyone can be 
morphed into thdr favourite shape. If you create 
any really impressive morphs, send them to the 
usual editorial address. 



Our initial image is of silver- 
tonsiled songstress Stevie Nicks. 
Watch as, before your eyes, she 
becomes someone quite 
different*. 


,„as we use a trio of effects: 
inbetweening, image distortion 
and digital fade. The frames of the 
morph are smoothed together... 


...the morph consisting of a series 
of sprite files run together in 
sequence to produce a seamless 
and startling transformation,,. 


...until she emerges as Kermit's 
girlfriend. Well, can you see where 
Stevie Nicks ends and IWiss Piggy 
begins? 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 69 



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programming 


lMfelcome to the first part of this scries on 
■■ learning to program in BBC Basic V. the 
language that comes free with every 32-bit 
Acorn machine. Although Basic is regarded as a 
rather slow and primitive language on other 
platforms, Acorn’s implementation is very 
flexible, very fast, and is ideally suited to those 
learning to program. 

Why should you want to learn to program? 
Well, there arc a number of very good reasons. 
You can write programs for your own use; you 
can read and understand other people’s 
programs, and change them if you want; you’ll 
understand more about how the machine works, 
and how to get the most from it: and most of all, 
programming is really satisfying. Ask any 
hacker; the moment when you finally gel a 
program to work is great. So it’s on with the 
show. 

First steps 

In this article Fm going to cover a few basic 
concepts (excuse the pun - go on. you think of 
another way of saying 'basic concepts’). First off 
is the age-old question 'what is a program? 5 
Next we'll look at a couple of example programs 
just to get you in the mood. Then I’ll talk about 
how to type the programs in. how to save and 
run them, and how to track down any typing 
errors you may have made, followed by a 
slightly longer program with a tine- by- line 
description. Here we go,.. 

The concept of a program is very simple: it’s 
just a list of commands which you give to the 
computer. Imagine giving directions to your 
house to a friend over the phone: ‘turn left at ihe 
lights’, 'go over the next roundabout’ and so on. 

A program is just like a list of instructions, but 
the instructions aren't in English, they’re in 
Basic, When you run the program, the computer 
follows the steps a line at a time until it reaches 
the end of the program. Then it stops. Easy. 

Let’s jump straight in at the deep end and look - 
at an example program. For those of you who 
have read books on Basic, or who have followed 
other series, please don’t groan when you see 
my examples. No doubt you will have seen them | 
before, but that’s only because the oldies are 
goldies. 1 make absolutely no apologies for my 
taste here. 

Listing ! is a very short program. If you know 
anything about Basic then you'll notice that 
there’s something missing: the line numbers 
(have a look at the listings in the yellow pages to 
spot the difference). In Basic programs each line 
has a unique number, but in these days of | 
enlightened programming practice the line 
number is regarded as an irrelevance, so in this 
series l*m going to ignore them totally. 

The reason for leaving out line numbers is that 
you don't need them: they’re a throwback from 
earlier days when you needed to refer to lines 1 
within a program, days which are thankfully , 
gone. Seasoned programmers will know all ' 
about the line number debate, and this approach j 
is the best possible way to ensure that good 
programming habits are learned. If you don’t I 
know what Fm talking about, it doesn’t matter; 
when you type in programs from die yellow 
pages, type in the line numbers, but if they’re for 
this series, don’t. 



What is a program? How do you type it in? And how 
do you save it? Mark Moxon starts his tutorial in 
Basic programming with some basic concepts 


§ln L fl PFS ; i^Hark ■ $ .'SftUD i sosi 98-93, ! Basic ■ Basic. Li st i ngl I | 


INPUT " Hhat is your nane? "naneS 
PRINT "Hello "jnaneSjV 
PRINT "Heicone to the world of Basic, 
END 


Edit 1 

J Hisc 

► 

■Save 

F3H 

Select 

► 

Edit 

> 

Display 

►i 


Sava as: 


* 


Listingl OKi 


I I HDFS ; : Hark, $.t ftp .BasicFroq 


Listingl 


□ 


■rm a Hkj ran _ 

Hark :0 Spps M Dungeon 

Don't worry if you haven’t got a due what 
Listing 1 docs: I’m only trying to scare you off 
at an early stage. 


r « 


i v t 

Typing Listing 1 into Edit 


Typing programs in 

Great, so we’ve got a program. But how do you 
type it tn? And what happens next? Well, there 
are a number of editors which can be used to 
create Basic programs: Rise OS 3 Edit, Desk Edit 
2. DBEdit, StrongEd //, Zap and Basic Ed d to 
name but a few. Fm going to be concentrating 
on using Rise OS 3 Edit as it comes free with 
your system, but if you feel happier with another 
editor, fine. Do note that Rise OS 2 Edit can't 
edit Basic programs, which is another reason to 
upgrade (as if you needed one). 

Now to type in Listing ! , Load Edit onto the 
iconbar, and press Menu over the icon. Move 
into the Create submenu and click on Basic; this 
opens up a normal Edit window, but ensures that 
what you are creating is a Basic program, rather 
than a straight text file. Get used to this window: 
you’ll be seeing a lot of it. 

Typing in the program is a breeze. Simply 
type each line as it is listed, and press RETURN at 


Listing 1 

REM >Listinglf 

INPUT "What is your name? 

PRINT "Hello *;name$;","3! 
PRINT "Welcome to the wor 
Id of Basic,"?! 

END?! 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 71 





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72 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 



PROGRAMMING 


the end of each line. As we have decided to 
ignore line numbers, it's a bit tricky to tell where 
the end of each line is, so I’ve put the % character 
to show you where to press RETURN. Don't try 
to enter a *1 character: just press RETURN. 

When you’ve finished typing in the program, 
save it just as you would save a text file, by 
pressing F3 or using the Save option from the 
menu. That’s all there is to it; you've created a 
Basic program. 

Problems, problems 

You can run your program by double-clicking 
on your Basic file. Hopefully a little screen will 
appear with a prompt for you to enter your 
name: do so and press RETURN. The program 
displays a friendly greeting, and a message 
appears inviting you to press the space bar, or 
click a mouse button. This is what happens with 
programs that do not multi-task: they take over 
the machine until they have finished executing, 
then you have to click the mouse to return to the 
desktop. The programs in this series will not be 
multi-tasking desktop applications: the theory 
behind writing multi-tasking programs is com- 
plex and books on the subject require prior 
knowledge of Basic programming. 

If you’ve managed to mistype anything in the 
program, then the above may not happen. Say 
you typed FRIT instead of PRINT in the fourth 
line; running the program would still ask you for 
your name, but would simply display "Mistake', 
followed by the "click mouse' prompt. Try it and 
see. Tracking down errors in small programs like 
this example is not too tricky, but imagine a 
program with hundreds of lines; an error like 
"Mistake’ is hardly helpful. Enter Listing 2. 

Listing 2 includes one extra line, starting with 
ON ERROR, and it has a deliberate error in the fifth 
line. When you type in this program, take very 
special care to get the ON error line right, as a 
mistake here could cause your machine to hang 
— so make sure you haven't got any unsaved 
work before you run the program. 

When you run the program, type in your 
name, and the error message shown is ‘Mistake 
at line 5'. This may not seem much more helpful 
than just "Mistake', but the line number allows 
you to pinpoint the mistake. To correct the error, 
use the Goto function in Edit to go to line 5 (via 
the menu or by pressing F5) and the caret will go 
to the incorrect line. Change PRIT to PRINT, and 
the program works fine. If the number in the 
error message isn’t 5, make sure that the entry in 
the Line number increment submenu is 10, 

This system enables you to track down typing 
errors. All the programs in this series will have 
the magic ON ERROR line, so it's worth adding a 
few of your own mistakes to the example pro- 
grams and seeing if you can find them using F5. 
Trendy editors like DBEdit track errors and 
jump to the offending line automatically, but for 
those without. Edit is perfectly adequate. 

I’ll use this method of referring to specific 
lines in programs, so if I refer to the 143rd line, 
then to get there, press F5 and enter 143. 

Line by line 

Listing 3 is a slightly longer program with lots 
more commands to bemuse and amuse. Type it 
in and run it to display multi plication tables: 



i hardly mind-bending, but not bad for the end of 
| tiie first article, surely? Just so you get a general 
i feel for how a program is executed, here’s a 
! quick breakdown of how this third program 
works, line by line. 

0 A REM statement. This docs nothing at all: it 
just allows us to put little comments in the 
I program (rem is short for remark). Here the 
I comment is simply the program name. Don't 
worry about the > sign: it's another throwback 
' from ancient days, but it's a convention to put a 
1 REK at the start of the program with the program 
' name prefixed by a >, 

© A colon. This also does nothing on its own, 
it’s just here to space the program out a bit. 
Attractive, don't you think? 

© A tough line, this one. It means 'if there is an 
I error then report it, print the line number, and 
then terminate the program.' Obvious, really, 
0-© This is called a REPEAT- UNTIL loop. I! 
you were able to describe programs in English 
rather than Basic, these lines would read: "Get 
the user to type in a number, with the prompt 
"Which table would you like to sec (1-12)?” and 
I make sure that the number entered is between I 
i and 12, If it isn't, ask again,' The middle line is 
i indented to show that it is inside the loop, purely 
i because it looks nice. 

@ This forms the start of what is called a FOR- 
l NEXT loop. It means that we're about to 
execute the following lines (up to the NEXT 
' statement in line 9) 12 times. 

© This is the line that is executed 12 times. It 
prints up the number of the loop we’re doing 
(which is from one and 12), a multiplication 
sign, the number the user typed in at the start, an 
I equals sign, and finally the result of multiplying 
the loop number by the user's number. This, 
believe it or not, ends up looking like a multipli- 
cation table. Again this line is indented as it is 
I inside a loop. 

i © This signifies the end of the loop. 

This signifies the end of the program. 

Don’t worry if the above makes no sense: 
after all, it makes the next instalment more of a 
I challenge. Next month you’ll actually start to 
, learn to program in Basic: see you then. 


What happens when you run 
Listing 3 


Listing 2 

REM >Liating2^I 

ON ERROR REPORT: PRINT " a 
t line " ; ERL/ 10 : ENDfl 
INPUT "What is your name? 
"name $51 

PRIT "Hello w ;name$UL"Sl 
PRINT "Welcome to the wor 
Id of Basic, "91 
ENDS! 


Listing 3 

REM >Listing3ft 

ON ERROR REPORT SPRINT " a 
t line ERL /KEENEST 

REPEATS! ' 

INPUT "Which table would 
you like to see (1-12 J? " 
tabled 

UNTIL tabled! AND table 

for ioop%=i to m 
PRINT loopV' x tabled 
loopV tabled 

NEXT lQ0P°4SI 
ENDS! 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 



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3 D GRAPHICS 


A new dimension 


To beef up your 3D plotting routines, Dave Acton adds SWIs to the BAU3D 
module and looks in detail at the problems of clipping and 
managing a multitude of objects and surfaces 


i 


n last month’s thrilling 
episode of 3D graphics for 
your Arc, we provided the first 
portion of source for the 
BAU3D module - a simple but 
speedy 3D scene plotting aid. 
This month we add some more 
SWIs to the module to replace 
our old Basic 3D plotting rou- 
tines, and we also take a 
detailed look at the problems 
of clipping and managing a 
large collection of both objects 
and surfaces. 

A heap is used to provide 
memory for storing and ren- 
dering 3D scenes. You have to 
tell BAU3D the address and 
size of memory it can use as a 
heap with the call; 

SYS "BAU3D_HeapInit " , addr , 
size 


lilt 



I l 



niigm 


uli'lHM l I 



bb : ' ; wkkM 


Thereafter, should you need 

where change is the number of 

^em, you can grab 

extra bytes needed (negative if 

T , U gn blocks of memory 

you want to shrink a block) 

' - ^ from the heap 

and new is the (potentially) new 

with the 

location of the block. Note that 

^ command: 

a block may move if you 

SYS "BAU3D_ 

extend it, so be sure to update 

HI Mai loc", size TO 

any references to it. 

“ ™ H block 

The memory calls are pro- 

which will allo- 

vided for your convenience 

11 1) cate size bytes 

and are used internally by 

starting at block. If 

BAU3D , In practice you may 

fl f J jj the allocation 

only need to use SYS 

fails, block will be 

" BAU 3 D_He ap I ni t " prior to 

Ml m k zero. To free a 

loading and rendering a scene. 

block of memory 

This month on the disc you'll 

- that you no longer 

find a new example file called 

' m nee ^» use: 

Objects. Cathedral to enter and 

H SYS "BAU3D_Free" 

save as a text file. Install 

Wm .block 

BAU 3D then run 3DDemo3 to j 

You can alter the 

display the scene. 

a* ^ size of a block 

The call to load a file is: 

5; j If:.]: with the 

SYS °BAU3D_Load% 

command: 

"filename' 1 , scale TO handle 

» SYS "BAtJ3D_ 

and the handle returned should 

Realloc ", block, 

be noted and used to plot the 

ft change TO new 

picture. It 


This month's example on the disc: the Objects. Cathedra I file 

is, in fact, the address of the 
object called ‘world’ which 
you should always define 
somewhere in your file. 

As before, the include: com- 
mand can be used to insert 
other files and it will be 
assumed these lie in the same 
directory. The scale parameter 
in rl is the amount co- 
ordinates are scaled. Remem- 
ber BAU3D expects positions 
in units of l/lOmm. So, if your 
file contains objects defined in 
centimetres, set scale to 100, If 
no scale is given, it is assumed 
co-ordinates are in metres and 
the factor is set to 10000. 

To free up the memory used 
for a scene you no longer wish 
to plot, issue the call: 

SYS "BAU3D_Lose 11 , handle 
To render a scene, use: 

SYS M BAU3D_Render\ handle r 
viewxys,viewang 
and the scene will be displayed 


graphics window. viewxyz 
should point to a 1 2-byte block 
of memory containing the jc, y 
and z offsets to be added to the 
co-ordinates of objects plotted 
(one word each), viewang will 
point to another three- word 
block containing the angles by 
which the scene should be 
rotated about the x, y and z 
axes. BAU 3D angles are 
always in the range 0-& 10000 
which correspond, in turn, to 
0-360 degrees. 

You will remember that the 
polygon plotting call swi 
"BAtDDJPlGt* takes various 
flags in r3. Bits 0 and 1 deter- 
mine the format of colours and 
bit 2 is set if you want to use 
OS_Plot calls. So that you 
have control over these flags 
when rendering a scene, an 
extra call is supported: 

SYS °BAU3D_WriteConf ig" r 
f lags, s, zplus 

and the current settings may be 
read with: 

SYS 11 B AU3 DReadConf i g 11 TO 
flags, s, zplus 

The value of nags is passed 
in r3 whenever the plot routine 
is called. The values of s and 
zplus specify how ‘violent" per- 
spective will be, and how 
much the picture will be scaled 
on-screen. Use the 
ReadConfig call to 
see the defaults. 

Because scenes 
are constructed jjgt 

using a building 
block approach it 
makes sense to 
store them by alio- 8* 

eating small blocks jgjp 

of memory and 
linking them with 







'Currently the leader of the 
pack because of its general 
ease of use, comprehensive 
nature and high RiscOS 
factor. A well thought out and 
well supported program. 
Recommended' - Arc World, 
July 1993, 

The above reviewer is not alone 
since all the other Acorn 
magazines have also given 
Prophet excellent reviews* but the 
people who really know how 
good Prophet is are Its users 
{who are not without a sense of 
humour!}* 

The following extract is from a recent 
letter Just returning Prophet VI. 29 
for upgrading in due course. Its 
getting better all the time... if you 
could get it to go out and take 
photographs for me while I go 
windsurfing 1 think that should 
probably do it! 1 - E Williams. 
Photographer. 

Compared with other accounting 
programs Prophet is a breath of fresh 
air. The few accounting terms which are 


used are explained in clear English as 
is the illustrated 168 page manual (see 
the review in Acom Computing * Oct 
1992) This combined with our free 
telephone help line and free upgrades 
will help ensure you don't go wrong. 

You can use as much or as little of 
Prophet's extensive features as you 
need - from simply entering your income 
and payments - !o calculating your 
balance sheet and even your tax liability. 
(Your data can be entered in any order 
as sorting by date is automatic). 

All your data is kept in a single file tor the 
whole year which means that you can 
edit any of your entries and produce 
reports on any aspect of your accounts 
for any period any time you like. 

You can also run as many different sets 
of accounts on it as you wish and if 
you're VAT registered Prophet also 
caters for the Cash Accounting scheme 
and many of the retail VAT schemes - it 
is also accepted by HM Customs 8 
Excise for VAT purposes. 

Other features include Automatic 
Standing Orders, Multiple Bank/Cash 
accounts. Stock Control, Invoicing, 
Statements, Purchase Orders, Credit & 
Delivery Notes (all of which can be set 


up to your own specification in Prophet's 
own DTP windows), Mail merging and 
exporting of data and reports to ail the 
other popular packages. 

Prophet is fully multi tasking and 
compliant with all versions of RiscOS. It 
will run on any of the Acorn 32 bit range 
of computers with a minimum of 2mb of 
memory. 

Prophet costs £199.75 inclusive of 
postage and VAT. An entry level version 
is also available for £10 inc. which 
includes the save option so you can 
really give Prophet a test drive, (the cos! 
Is refundable on full purchase). 


And now.JShares 

A fully multi tasking stocks & shares 
program with everything you would 
expect except the price.. just £39.95 
inclusive, 

■Shares fealures easy entering and 
editing of your data, multiple portfolios, 
graphs and much more. Please send for 
the free demonstration disc or order 
direct from Apricote Studios. 


The current version of Prophet has a myriad of extra features based on user feedback and this combined with our policy of free 
upgrades ensure that Prophet will always remain the number one choice for small business accounts software on the Archimedes, 


Apricote Studios, 2 Purls Bridge Farm, Manea, Cambs, PEI 5 OND. Tel: 0354 680432 


The Summer's ‘Here! 


...and thoughts turn to lazy 
days and holidays. Now's the 
ideal time to relax in a 
deckchair, maybe think about 
that project you want to start 
on the Arc, or maybe about 
that game you always fancied 
trying. So why not beat the 
Autumn rush and order your 
requirements now! 

Using Access, Visa, 
Mastercard or Delta you can 
place your orders 24 hours a 
day on (0273) 208074 or taxing 
us on (0273) 73S258. Cheques 
by post still very welcome! 

P.5 IrVeVe j way on out own 
holidays between >8/7 and I 1/8. 
Orders w l be dealt with as we 
resume normal service on our 
return. 


Art/Craphks 

Artworks.... ....... 145. 

Chameleon 2 42. 

GraphBox Pro ,...1 1 5 

Illusionist .,*,**.,, 85. 

Imagery „*,„,*.******* 82 

Image Outliner .90. 

Revelation 2 ..128, 

smArt ,*****54. 

smArt Filer ...... .......38. 

Vector ***.*.,,89, 

Books 

First Impressions 31 . 

Good Impressions 29. 

Common tea tions 

ArcComm 2 .....55, 

Arc Fa x ******* ,22. 

ArcTerm 7 ................,,,,,,70. 

Databases 

F lex [file. .133 

Squirrel ,..„1 50 

DTP/WP 

Impression 2 145. 

Impression Junior..,...,***.,61 . 
Pendown Outline Fonts .19. 

All prices include VAT, 


education 

,00 Fun School 3 {-S r S 7,7+) 2 1 00 
.00 Fun School 4 (-5,5-7, 7+) .2 1 .00 
00 Hypermedia 

.00 Genesis 2 , ..130 00 

.25 Magpie .....56,00 

QO Music 

.75 Notate ,....59.00 

.00 Rhapsody 2 ,...55. 00 

.00 Score Draw. 55.00 

.00 MID [/Sam pler ( Econet) .... 7 5 ,00 
Peripherals 

.QO Vision Colour Dig. find. ,89,50 

GO HiVision * " (Int) 89.50 

ScanLight 256 ,,220,00 

00 CC Colour Card 265.00 

00 Printers 

,00 Canon BJ-IOex ..******* 205.00 

with CC Turbo Driver ....255.00 

00 Canon BJC800 1610.00 

,00 includes CC Turbo Driver 

LaserDinect HiRes 4 ,,..1050 00 
00 Spreadsheets 

00 Eureka! 128.75 

.95 Pipedream 4 199,00 

Postage and Packing. PO Cash 


Utilities 

Arcticulate . . 1 9,00 

C ompress ion * 48 .00 

Consumables 

BJ-10 Ink Cartridge 20.50 

Box 10 VfY TDK DS/DD .. 8.90 
Box 10 Vh H TDK DS/HD 12,50 

Games 

2067BC™ *„.,* ,18.50 

Aggressor ,..,..17.80 

Aldebaran ** 28.95 

Battle Chess ***** 25.25 

Black Angel .,.,,......29.95 

Bobby Blockhead 1 7.50 

Break 147 & SuperpooL.29,95 
Cartoon Line, Part I ........ 19.50 

Champions .. 25.25 

Chuck Rock .... .21.75 

C yber Chess 4100 

Cyborg 22.50 

E-Type Compendium 20,75 

EGO: Repton 4 ...,.21.25 

Fervour ,*.*****,. .21 .75 

Galactic Dan .....,,21.50 

Gods... .......21.75 


Cribbly's Day Out 21.95 

Grievous Bodily 'Arm 20,75 

Guile 25.20 

Hero Quest *,*,.25,25 

James Pond ,.2 1 .75 

Kri sal is OoJ lection *.,..25.25 

Lemmings .*,.21 ,75 

Oh No! More Lemmings 16.95 
Legend' Lost Temple....... 19.50 

Lotus Turbo Ch. 2 **,.,21*75 

Man. United Europe 21 .75 

Nebulus,.** 21.75 

Paradroid 2000, ***** 21.75 

Pesky Muskrats 21-95 

Populous *..,21 .75 

P rovoc ator . ********** ****** ***** 1 6 .95 

Quest for Gold 21 .75 

Raw Power. ..24.50 

Saloon Cars Deluxe,** 29.95 

Sim City ,,,29.50 

Spheres of Chaos 21 .25 

SWIV,..*. .,..21.75 

Technodream ****,..,21 ,25 

Top Banana. 21,25 

X-Ftre,.**. ... *,...20*75 


on Delivery: add £4.50 for orders op to £500. E&OE 


SENLAC 

Computing 

Limited 

(AU0893) 

PO Box 304 
BRIGHTON BN2 2TT 
Te! (0273) 208074 
Fax (0273) ”38258 


★★★ Star Bargains ★★★ 


US Robotics Courier HST Dual + fax 585.00 

Excellent fast modem. v32bis, HST , fax capability. 
Limited offer. H5T standard is very fast and widely 
supported by bulletin boards. SENLAC are 
US Robotics Preferred Resellers, See above for s/w. 

US Robotics Courier v32his + fax,*. 485*00 

As above but without proprietory HST standard. 


Panasonic KXP-1 124i 200.00 

Excellent quality 24pin dot matrix . Very limited 
quantity at this price. 

The original Safoon Cars ...,* J 5.00 

Still an excellent game for Rise OS 2 users. 

Cataclysm * .....*...**1 7.50 

Another excellent Rise OS 2 game , 


* *■* Only While Stocks Last *** 


76 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 




3D GRAPHICS 


pointers. The idea here is to 
avoid duplication of co- 
ordinates. For example, your 
world might contain two 
identical houses. Although the 
co-ordinates and positions of 
the houses will need to be 
stored separately, it would be 
wasteful to duplicate every 
window and door. Instead, two 
subobjects are defined. These 
contain their own angles and 
positions and a pointer to the 
type of object they are. In this 
example, the pointers will both 
be the same and point to the 
house object. 

The definition for the world 
takes the form of a tree. Within 
this tree there are three types 
of entity. The box below r 
shows their formats. Objects 
are things like houses and are 
defined as a pointer to a name, 
and another to a list of sabob- 
jects , Subobjects are not 
objects in their own right but 
descriptions of the components 
of an object. For example, a 
house might have four subob- 
jects in the form of walls, and 
another for the roof. A subob- 
ject contains a pointer to either 
an object or a surface. A sur- 
face is simply a list of co- 
ordinates and a colour which 
together describe a polygon. 
This is the most fundamental 
of building blocks. 

Bounding cubes 

If you've ever played around 
with a Draw file you will pro- 
bably be aware of the idea of a 
bounding box. This is simply 
the smallest box that totally 
encloses an object. In three 
dimensions the bounding box 
becomes a bounding cube and 
is just the smallest cube (or 
strictly speaking, parallelepi- 
ped, since it probably won’t be 
exactly a cube) that encloses 
all components of an object. 

Each subobject has its own 
bounding cube which comes in 
very handy when clipping in 
three dimensions. When stand- 
ing in a 3D world, many 
objects will lie completely out- 
side the view pyramid, which 
is simply that chunk of 3D 
space that you can see. By 
checking whether the bounding 
cube of an object is outside our 
view we eliminate it from cal- 
culations. We need to check 
the eight points that form the 
bounding cube - if all are 
invisible then we can ignore 
further details of the object. 



The undipped polygon 




Sliding the first point onto the screen Sliding to second to complete the dip 


BAU3D structures 

OBJECT 

0 «■> name 

4 -> Ibt of sub -objects (or 0 if none) 

SURFACE 

0 type (0 means continuation of surface list, 1 means start new 

list - set by the merge command for surface details} 

4 colour 

8 number of sides 

12, 16, 20 first co-ordinate 
24... other co-ordinates 

5UBQBJECT 

0 -> next sub object or 0 if no more 

4 -> data, a pointer to a surface or an object 

8 flags: bits 0-5 are used in dipping, bit 6 marks merged subobject 

and bit 7 is set if value at 4 points to a surface (dear if an object) 
12, 16, 20 offset of subobject from origin of parent (x,y,z) 

24, 28, 32 angle of subobject 

36, 40, 44 co-ordinates of first vertex of bounding cube 
48-128 other vertices of bounding cube 


If the world is built up of 
successively larger compo- 
nents it will take little time to 
eliminate large invisible areas. 
Consider a town, defined as 
four quarter-areas, themselves 
defined as four sub-areas. It is 
likely that two or three quarters 
of the town can be discarded 
immediately since their bound- 


ing cubes arc off-screen. Of 
the visible quarters, several 
sub-areas will be invisible, so 
we soon reduce objects to a 
manageable number. 

The city demo Make City 
successively divides the map 
into quarters, so making it 
easier for BAU3D to spot what 
can and can't be seen. 


Having ruled out those 
objects and parts of objects 
which are wholly invisible we 
arc left with the problem of 
polygons which are partially in 
view. We could just leave it up 
to the 2D clipping (called the 
graphics window) to deal with 
these but this is not reliable. 
Imagine a long road and 
ourselves standing halfway 
along it. Because the polygon 
extends way behind us this will 
confuse the plotting routine 
when in comes to converting 
3D co-ordinates into 2D ones. 

Object clipping 

What we must do is clip the 
polygon in 3D dimensions so 
that its vertices are at least of 
manageable proportions. We 
can then leave it up to the 
polygon-plotting code to clip 
the odd few pixels on-screen. 

The images on the left show 
the stages involved in clipping 
a polygon. The rectangle 
shows the visible area. Two 
points of the polygon are off- 
screen, so these are slid tow- 
ards their visible neighbours in 
turn. If only one vertex is off 
the screen it is duplicated and 
the two copies slid towards 
their neighbours. The other 
possibility is of three consecu- 
tive invisible vertices. Here, 
the middle vertex is simply 
deleted and the clipping pro- 
ceeds as before. 

The sliding could be done in 
a number of ways. The aim is 
to move an invisible point tow- 
ards a visible neighbour until it 
is just visible. Geometry could 
be used to find the point where 
line and view pyramid inter- 
sect. Our module uses a 
simpler approach. The invis- 
ible point homes in on the edge 
of the visible rectangle. 

Due to the length of the 
extra BAU3D module source 
code and the example pro- 
grams, the listings won *t fit in 
yellow pages. If you want the 
complete system so far and do 
not have the subscriber's disc , 
send a blank E-format disc, 
with a stamped, addressed 
envelope to: 

3D Graphics Listings 
BBC Acorn User 
Redwood Publishing 
10 1 Bayham Street 
London 
NWI OAG 

If you don 7 include an SAE, 
we can't guarantee to return 
your disc to you. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 11 


9 e#fc Voxk 4 Vm 4 3 2 Vmk J 


ICDO FONTS 
ONLY C20 

Supplied with Bold & Italic Styles, comes on 16 discs. 


Acorn 

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SKYFALL PD 




[ have 5.0 fonts in them, and are supplied on 4 discs, 
iksffor only L20. or at £6 individually. For details of 
lieh.includes Clip Art, please send £1 for a demo 


( hone : 02 1 358 7078 
§20, Birmingham, B43 5RZ. 


- 


Impression Resource Disc 


With over a 100 borders, a range of useful clip art and a selection of hints and tips. £7.95 

The Impression Junior Resource Disc as above with working borders. £7.95 

jsjEW ie Ovation Resource Disc - contains extra borders, dip art. hints & tips etc. £8.95 




some of the 50+ Clip Art Collections 
Home Publisher clip art (Draw) £5.95 

Europe Maps colour {Draw- confessed i £7.95 
World Maps (Draw/compressed) £7.95 

UK Maps (Draw/comp'essed) £7.95 

World Houses (O»aw/compr&s$ed) £7.95 

Extinct Animals (Dr aw/compresscd) £7.95 


Parish Magazine • 3 di$csj\. v. 
of Draw files, 1 disc r - v * 4 
of KJ (AV) New 


Ready to run. fully illustrated ClearView 
hypertext files, with free copy of ClearView 

EuroFaCtfile for the New Europe £6.95 

Scientists & Inventors 300 * b ographies £8.95 
Christopher Columbus' first voyage £6.95 
National Parks (for key stage 2 ) £8.95 

ClearView Advanc e d versi on £ 25.50 

The Pond Kit - KS 3 to A 
level. 2 discs of ' 
resources & worksheets ■ -J 
£14.00 


^ XV! ■ r Testament files £16.98 | 

Over 1800 clp art files now available • for A300Q/ A30 1 (VA3020/ A400CV A5000 & Archimedes machines 



Send £1 for the free Auto-Catalogue & 

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Add VAT at 17.5*; and £1 postage to 
all orders. 

School order forms accepted Oep AU7, PO Box 97. Exeter. EX4 4YA Phone/Fax 0392 221702 

& * 


CSS Computer Centre 

Acorn Education Centre 
Acorn Unix Centre Acorn® 

T1«chonufnpcricntt 

Showroom open 9-5.30 
Six days a week 4^1 

Training. Free fitting of add ons 
Repairs and maintenance 


NEW: A3000, A4000, A5000 & Pocket Rook now in slock 


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Unit 3A, Townfoot Ind. Fist., BRAMPTON 
CUMBRIA CAS 1SW 
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One 

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Telephone 
061-320 3087 

2 Field Mews, Denton. 


. j Manchester, M34 2DA 

Storage Fax:061-3203210 


A/3000/10/20 (internal IDE) 

_60 Mb 15ms IDE £219 

_85 Mb 15ms IDE £249 

120 Mb 15ms IDE £289 

210 Mb 15ms IDE £429 

Other Archimedes 
Machines (internal) 
Quantum 

_85 Mb 15ms IDE £145 

127 Mb 15ms IDE £169 

170 Mb 15ms IDE £189 

240 Mb 15ms IDE £249 

425 Mb 14ms IDE £589 

525 Mb 10ms IDE £679 

SCSI 

_85 Mb 17ms SCSI £149 

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Conner 

_85 Mb 19ms IDE £149 

120 Mb 19ms IDE £159 

170 Mb 19ms IDE £179 

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SCSI 

_85 Mb 16ms SCSI £149 

170 Mb 16ms SCSI £179 

213 Mb 12ms SCSI £239 

540 Mb 12ms SCSI £619 



SCSICards to connect internal 
and external SCSI devices: call 
with your specifications. 

ARM 3 Upgrade £159 

Memory 

A3000 1 to 2Mb Upgrade £ 35 
A3010 1 to 2Mb Upgrade £ 39 
A3020 2 to 4Mb Upgrade £ 69 
A4000 2 to 4Mb Upgrade £ 69 
A5000 2 to 4Mb Upgrade £ 79 


We supply all Acorn 
products. Please call 
with your requirements 


All Prices Exclude VAT. 
& Carriage. Prices & 
Specifications 
may change without 
notice. E. & O. E. 






19 


78 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 











PROBLEMS 


QUESTIONS 


AND 


ANSWERS 



Star question 


Q I have got the 'Interactive file copying' flag set on my Rise QS 3 
computer and most of the time file copying is, indeed, multi-tasking. 
However, sometimes copying or deleting files produces a window in the 
middie of the screen where the process is detailed, but it is not multi- 
tasking, and I am asked to press the space bar or to dick the mouse to 
continue. Is my CMOS Ram faulty? 

JG Hancock 
Romford 

Q The reason for this problem is simple: lack of memory. Whenever a 
multi-tasking file copy is started, memory is claimed from the Next and Free 
slots, and is given the name 'Filer action window', you can see this in action 
If you open the Task window and start the copying process. 

If there isn't enough memory available to perform this claim, which may 
happen if you have a lot of applications running, or you have other multi- 
tasking Filer operations in progress, then Rise QS switches to single-tasking 
Filer operations, producing the screen display you mention. 

The reason the display freezes up is that the Verbose option is switched on. 
This allows the multi-tasking window to show the progress of the 
operation, and a command window is opened to show the information 
displayed. Because the operation is no longer multi-tasking, however, you 
have to click the mouse after the copy has finished, just as you had to with 
Rise OS 2. 


0 I keep reading about 
A rc h i rnede s computers , R i sc 
OS computers, 32-bit compu- 
ters. the A400/1 series, A5000s 
and so on. Confused isn't the 
word: what are all these com- 
puters, and how does my 
A 30 10 Hi into it all? Do I have 
Rise OS 2 or 3 or 3.1, and 
what's the big deal anyway? 

j Mascis 
Guildford 

O When Acorn first 
launched its 32-hit range, it 
named the computers 
* Archimedes', The name has 
stuck, though Acorn’s 32-hit 
computers are now referred 
to as 4 Acorn’ machines* 

The machines in the 32-bit 
range are as follows (in 
chronological order): A 305, 
A3 10, A 440, A410/1, A420/1, 
A440/1, A 540, A3000, A5000, 
A4, A3010, A 3020, A40OO* 
This list does not Include the 
Unix workstations Acorn 
produces* The last Archi- 
medes to be produced was 
the A540; after that the dis- 
tinctive 4 A’ logo was dropped 
by Acorn. 

These various computers 
vary considerably in specifi- 
cation, but the one common 
theme is that each contains 
an Arm processor: Arm2, 
Yrm250 or Arm3. This 
enables them alt to run the 
same programs, so it doesn’t 
matter if you have an old 
A 305 or an A 5000 - you can 
still run the same programs. 
Hie only pitfall is the operat- 
ing system. 

Early Archimedes compu- 
ters (the A 305, A3 10 and 
A 440 1 had the Arthur oper- 
ating system, which was 
superseded by Rise OS 2 (in. 
the A410/1, A 420/1, A 440/ 1, 
A 540 and A300Q). 

A new version of the oper- 
ating system, Rise OS 3, was 
produced for the A5000, fol- 
lowed by a new version. Rise 
OS 3.1, for the A4, A3010, 
A 3020 and A4000. Rise OS 
3/1 is also available as an 
upgrade for all the older 
machines, and is highly 
recom men d e d to e n s u re 

ft i tu re co m p at i hi I i tv * 

What all this boils down to 
is that programs designed for 
Rise OS will run on any 
other machine with the same 


version of Rise OS fitted. So 
the 32-bit column in the yel- 
low 7 pages compatibility chart 
applies to all of the above 
machines which are fitted 
with Rise OS, though some 
will only work on Rise QS 3, 
ami are not suitable for use 
with the older Rise OS 2. 


[ have recently installed an 
ICS 60Mb internal hard disc 
on my 4Mb A3OO0. It works 
fine but 1 am having trouble 
getting it to recognise a / Boot 
file or application that would 
run a few utilities (TinyDirs > 
Palette settings) on power-up. 1 
have used all of the following 


configuration options without 
success: 

Filesystem IDEFS 
IDEFSDrive 4 
Drive 4 
Boot 

I tried creating autobool files 
w ith both Obey and Command 
fi lety pe s wi t ho ut s uecess . 

After that 1 wrote IBoot as an 
application whose I Run file 
contained instructions like 
* IDEFS Power Save 12, *Dir 

iBoot and * I TinyDirs (as I 
Stored TinyDirs in my boot 
directory). When 1 turned the 
computer on, none of the 
instructions was executed and 
when 1 double-clicked on 
! Booty the powersave option 
worked but only some of the 
applications ran. Is there a bug 
in IDEFS or am I doing 
something wrong? 

AS Brown 
Mi Inga vie, Strathclyde 

Q There are two problems 
here. First, there's no bug in 
the IDEFS and your con- 
figurations look all right, but 
you don't make any mention 
of the command *0PT 4. This 
Command tells the filing 
system what to do when it is 
told to boot a disc using the 
IBoot tile: it either loads the 
file (*0PT 4 1), runs it 
(*0PT 4 2) or executes it 
using *EXEC (*0PT 4 3). When 
you enter this instruction, 
your choice is written onto 
the current disc and appears 
in the top line of the direc- 
tory when you type *CAT 
from the command line. 

Since your hard disc sup- 
plier cannot know which 
option you want, all hard 
discs are sold with this option 
set to 0 (off) and therefore do 
nothing when told to boot* If 
you write your IBoot file as 
an Obey file and set the hard 
disc to * OPT 4 2, it should 
work precisely as it does 
when you double-click on it. 

Your second problem, the 
fact that your boot file does 
not run all your applications* 
may be due to the way you 
are calling them. In Obey 
files, particularly boot files, it 
is good practice to invoke 
programs using their 1 'llII 
pathnames. For example, 
rather than writing *Dir 
iBoot followed by *1 TinyDirs 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 79 






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any other and supports hard disc 
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PROBLEMS 



A couple of books for all you budding Wimp programmers 


use a line like Run 
IDEFS: ; HardDisc * $ , AppB , JTiny 
Dirs, substituting the true 
name of your hard disc in 
place of HardDisc. 

Use the same complete 
pathname format for every 
application you call. It means 
more typing, but this way 
Rise OS will always know 7 
where it can find the next 
application irrespective of 
which directory it was left in 
by the last one. 

It also means that you can 
store your utilities in any 
location you like on the disc 
rather than having to hide 
them away inside IBoot. 
IBoot is hardly the first place 
Fd think of looking for utili- 
ties, anyway* 

Of course. Rise OS 3J has 
a built-in feature which saves 
the current state of the desk- 
top as a boot file which you 
can alter in Edit. .Just one of 
the many reasons that you 
should be thinking of 
upgrading your machine, 

UPDATES 

0 In January, A Keb wrote in 
asking for an article on Basic 
programming for the Rise OS 
desktop. I told him then that it 
would probably need a series 


to deal with the subject. Toby 
Duckworth, the editor of Vir- 
tuality* the disc-based 
magazine for the Arc, wrote in 
to say that his publication has 
done just such a series. This is 
now available on a compilation 
disc for £5.99. 

For more information on this 
series of articles, write to: Vir- 
tuality, l The Square, Woolav- 
ington, Bridgewater, Somerset, 
TA7 8DL, 

There are also the two books 
which we reviewed last month. 
Wimp Programming for Alt 


from Rise Developments 
(ISBN 1-85142-088-6), and A 
Beginners ’ Guide to Wimp 
Programming from Sigma 
Press (ISBN 1-85058-33 6-6), 

• Following Frank Cobbett's 
request for graphics help with 
his astrology program (in the 
February Acorn User) I got a 
letter from Jon Keates in 
Burton-on -Trent 
Jon is writing just such an 
application, which he hopes to 
have released as shareware at 
some point in the future. He 
has produced some really nice 


graphics of astrological charts 
and a vector font of all the 
appropriate arcane symbols, 
but he is still not totally happy 
with the accuracy of some of 
his maths routines, f ve passed 
his letter on to Mr Cobbett in 
the hope that they can collab- 
orate on this one. 

• GP Camuhers of Cardigan, 
Dyfed has got in touch with us 
regarding the problem with 
form feeds that Philip Beckett 
was experiencing while writing 
a label printing application that 
uses outline fonts (see the 
March issue of Acorn User). 

He points out that if Philip is 
using Rise OS 3.1, the system 
is probably inserting its own 
form feed characters (Ascii 12 
or &0C) at the end of each of 
the pages, on the instructions 
of the printer definition file. 

If this is the case, Mr Car- 
ruthers recommends that Philip 
create a copy of his primer 
definition file. He will then be 
able to edit this character out 
of the graphics mode list using 
the Configure list in Print Edit. 

While he is in there, he 
could also delete any graphics 
resolutions that aren’t used by 
his program and then save the 
new version under a useful 
name like Labels. 


Customer hotline 

Each month in Acorn User, Alan Glover offers you the latest support and advice from the Acorn customer service department 


This month we look at writing software to run on different Rise 05 
platorms, some reasonably common programming errors you may come 
acrosss, and howto avoid them, 

$ THE WIMPSLOT VALUE IN THE !RUN FILE. 

The parameters for the WimpS tot command may take any numeric 
value. However, they will always be rounded up to the next multiple of 
the memory page size of the computer. Page sizes vary between eight 
and 32K. A differing page size is a common source of problems where a 
program will run on one computer but not another. Here's an example 
to illustrate the point 

Say a program has a WmnpSlot setting of 36K, This is too low, and it 
should really be about 48K, On a 4Mb machine, with 32K pages, the 
program will get 64K (two 32K pages) and will run happily. On a llVIb 
machine, with 8K pages, it will only get 4QK (five 8K pages) and will fail. 
This kind of failure usually takes strange forms such as falling after a 
certain time or when a specific operation is attempted. Since many 
software writers have 4Mb machines rather than 1 Mb computers this 
scenario can easily occur. 

* USING COLOUR IN THE DESKTOP 

Your programs could be run in two-, four- , 16- or 25G-colour modes, 
even higher if a graphics enhancer board is fitted. You should check that 
the colours you use are distinguishable in all these pixel depths - a 
common mistake is to choose colours which contrast well in a iS-colour 
mode but which iook identical in a two-colour mode so it becomes 
impossible to separate the text of an icon from its background, When 


you are performing VDU output to a window yourself (for example 
redrawing a window's content) use the facilities provided by Colour - 
Trans to get the correct colour number to use for current mode and 
palette settings. Do not use a colour number which happens to be right 
in a particular mode; it wit! not be right in other modes with a different 
number of bits per pixel. 

Don't go overboard with the use of colour. Too much becomes 
intrusive and distracting. 

* LOADING YOUR PROGRAM FILES 

Do not write programs to use an explicit path to load resource files (so 
don't use A DFSr.Q.MyApps,! Wo tsiUSprites). If you do it means users 
cannot put it where they want on their discs. Now many computers are 
sold with hard discs fitted, or are easily upgraded to have hard discs, you 
should ensure that your program can be located on any disc/filing 
system. Similarly, do not presume that people will only have ADFS or 
SCSI filing systems - many people have IDE filing systems, for example. 
The correct way to do it is to set a system variable to your application 
directory location in the !Run file, as follows: 

Set WotsitSDir <Obey5 Drr> 

ObeySDir is a system variable which contains the directory in which 
the file being obeyed resides, WotsitSDir is the variable for your 
application; the naming convention is that the name of the variable is 
the same as your application name. Thus, in this example, the application 
should be called Wotsit. Once you have done this you can access your 
flies in a location independent manner by using 
<WotsitSDir>J Sprites 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 81 



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Rise OS 2 & 3 versions on each disc. 

Letraset is ei registered trademark of Essellc Pendaflex Corporation in the USA, of 
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The Medieval & Gothic Typefaces 
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The user manual, contains the 
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Rise OS 2 & 3 friendly. 



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PROBLEMS 


SOLVED 


Hints and tips 

Technical trickery and useful tips from your fellow readers 



xj RDFS:sMark.$,BBUDiscs 

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lolxi RDFS: :MarL$.BBUi)iscs, 07-93 

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Avoid dogging up your desktop when traversing deep directory structures by using Adjust 


W elcome to Hints and 
Tips. If you have any of 
your own tricks to share, 
please send them in to us at: 
Hints and Tips, BBC Acorn 
User , 1 0 1 Bayham Street, Lon- 
don NW] GAG, 

ADJUST YOUR MOUSE 

A Hudson 

There are a lot of clicks and 
drags which, although they are 
documented, are not used as 
much as they should be. As the 
complete list of clicks is not 
summarised anywhere, a lot of 
users fail to use the shortcuts 
available. The following list of 
n on-obvious clicks might 
prove useful, especially as far 
as Adjust is concerned, 

0 Select-drag on title bar. Tog- 
gle icon, size icon allows 
window to be moved, toggled 
and sized; Adjust-drag does 
the same without bringing it to 
the front. 

• Adjust on scroll bars or 
scroll arrow's performs the 
scroll, but in the opposite 
direction to Select. 

0 Adjust-drag inside scroll bar 
allows you to scroll the win- 
dow both horizontally and 
vertically at the same time. 

0 Select on close icon closes 
the window. 

0 SHIFT-Select on close icon 
closes the window, and icon- 
ises it onto the Pinboard. 

• Double-clicking with Select 
or Adjust on an iconised win- 
dow opens that window, 

0 SHTFT-Menu on an iconised 
window brings up the appli- 
cation menu for that window. 

• Adjust on close icon closes 
the window, but note the fol- 
lowing: for Filer windows, the 
parent directory is opened (as 
if Open parent was chosen 
from the Filer menu), and on 
editor windows (such as 
Impression, Edit and so on) the 
directory containing the file 
being edited is opened. 

0 SHIFT- Adjust on close icon 
does the same as Adjust, but 
doesn’t close the window. 

0 Clicking Adjust on items in 
directory windows will then 
select them without deselecting 
other items. 

• In Filer windows, dragging 
a bounding box with Select 
will select any objects inside 
the box; dragging a bounding 
box with Adjust toggles the 
selection of items inside the 
box (NOT logic). 


0 Dragging selected flics with 
Adjust copies files and closes 
the source directory. 

0 Dragging selected files with 
SHIFT-Adjust moves files and 
closes the source directory. 

0 Double-clicking with Adjust 
on files, directories or appli- 
cations runs or opens the 
object, and closes the directory 
containing that object. 

0 CTRL-double-c lie king on a 
directory with Select opens 
that directory without running 
application boot files. 

0 CTRL-double-cIicking on a 
directory with Adjust opens 
that directory without running 
application boot files, and 
closes the parent directory. 

0 SHIFT-double-clieking on 
files or applications with 
Select loads the file into Edit 
or it will open up the appli- 
cation directory. 

0 s H i FT- double-clicking on 

files or applications with 
Adjust loads the file into Edit 
or opens the application direc- 
tory, and closes the directory 
containing that object. 


0 Clicking on a menu item 
with Adjust will choose that 
item, and will keep the menu 
structure open, 

USEFUL KEYPRESSES 

There arc a few keypresses 
which are also useful in writ- 
able icons (such as in save 
boxes). Try the following. 

0 DELETE deletes a character 
to the left. 

0 COPY deletes a character to 
the right, 

0 SHIFT-COPY deletes a w'ord 
to the right. 

0 CTRL- COPY deletes com- 
pletely to the right, 

0 CTRL-U deletes the contents 
of the whole icon. 

The FJ2 key is also very 
useful. 

0 FI2 goes to ihe command 
line to enable star commands 
to be entered. 

0 SHIFT-F12 brings the icon bar 
to the front, 

0 CTRL-FJ2 brings up a task 
window, and it will load Edit 
in the process. 

0 CTRL-SHIFT-F12 shuts the 


desktop down, and this should 
be done before switching off 
the machine, 

BETTER SCREENSHOTS 

FG Shannon 

One problem with Paint's 
screenshot capability is that 
you have to drag the file to a 
directory window to save it; 
having to have this directory 
open can ruin your shot. You 
can always type in a full path- 
name in the save box, but an 
easier way is to drag the sprite 
icon onto Paint's icon: as long 
as there is enough memory, 
Paint will load the sprite itself 
Another omission of Paint 
screenshots is that the pointer 
is missing. However, it is easy 
enough to add one. Save the 
sprite pir_defauli from the file 
5, Resou rces. Wimp. Sprites in 

the Apps filing system and 
give it a palette and a mask. 
Now change colour one to 
cyan, two to blue, and white to 
transparent, and you can paste 
pointer onto your screenshot 
using 'Use sprite as brush \ 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 S3 






WorraCAD was the first 
Computer Aided Drafting 
application for RISC OS 
and has evolved steadily 
over the years. Changes 
to the system have been 
consolidated with a new 
release which features a 
revised user interface. 

When WorraCAD was launched, not long after 
RISC OS, it quickly established itself as a top 
selling CAD system, not least because it remained 
for some considerable time, the only CAD system 
for the RISC OS desktop It integrated well into die 
desktop environment thanks to its support for RISC 
OS printer drivers, and facilities such as export of 
Drawftles. The ability to both import and export 
DXF files to and from CAD systems on other 
platforms, also helped to firmly establish 
WorraCAD's industrial base. 


Designed to simplify the job of producing 
accurate technical drawings, WorraCAD was 
loaded with features to create precision geometric 
constructions quickly and with ease. 

WorraCAD is unique amongst CAD applications 
for RISC OS in that it uses a floating point, rather 
than an integer model to internally represent its 
data. This avoids two major problems: 

1. Integer packages tend to have great 
difficulty in dealing w'ith objects larger than 
AO paper - die compromise between 
accuracy and drawing area means that the 
largest coordinates that can be represented 
by 32 bit integers can only be a couple of 
metres from the origin, WorraCAD’s data 
format can liandle a drawing area larger 
than the known universe! 

2. At the odier end of the scale, integer 
systems soon run out of resolution, so that 
an object snapped to an intersection point 
may not quite be accurately positioned 
upon dose examination. Once again, 
WonCAD’s floating point data structure 
removes the problem with its ability' to 
resolve sub-atomic distances. 


WorraCAD quickly established a large user base, 
both in schools and in industry* Professional users 
are quick to suggest ways of improving software 
they tise all day, every day, and so WorraCAD has 
evolved steadily over the years to make the job of 
producing real technical drawings quicker and 
easier, and new features have been added to 
increase the functionality of the program. 

A recent consolidation of improvements 
suggested by users has culminated in a new 
release of the software with a revised user 
interface. The original WorraCAD user interface 
was based on the RISC OS menu system, but also 
had a parallel menu structure based on that of Oak 
PDT, Both these remain (as configurable options) 
but the new method of driving WorraCAD is via an 
icon based toolbox. One reason for the change is 
that pupils no longer get the opportunity to spend 
a lot of time learning about technical drawing and 
its terminology, and so a text based menu referring 
to Tangents' and ‘Normals 1 is less readily 
understood than an icon showing the construction. 

WorraCAD in this new 7 guise, remains, perhaps 
not the mast flashy, but certainly the mast useful 
and useable RISC OS CAD system, for those w ho 
need to create accurate technical drawings. 





B I O 


Not so baby Bio 

Since the Daves introduced their modular desktop tool, they have been bombarded 
with ideas to make Bio even more multipurpose. Here is new, improved, Bio+ 


B ack in February we introduced the 
application to end all applications - Bio. 
This modular desktop tool was designed to let 
simple Basic programs work on the desktop. 

Since then we have received suggestions from 
readers and we hope Bio will form a regular 
feature in A corn User , To get the ball rolling, 
we present an updated version of Bio , called 
Bio a - and a couple of new Bio modules. Bio+ 
isn’t really version 2 (which we are planning) 
but does contain enhancements and has had 
some of its features fixed. Next month will see 
some more Bio utilities so watch this space. 

To update Bio to merge the program 

Biolines with the IRunlmage from the original 
application. Some lines are new, others replace 
existing lines - so make sure the line numbers 
match. You will also need to run Pctl Dot to 
create the file Palettes. The fully-revised appli- 
cation can be found on the subscriber's disc. 

One of the most useful enhancements we’ve 
made is allowing Bio modules to output to a 
sprite rather than to produce a file or result 
strings. As an example, try our Graph Plotter 
plot module. 

A new flag, called -window can be returned in 
your FNxxx_args function and, if present, your 
module may output to a sprite. Your main func- 
tion should then create a sprite using 
FMcreate_window. This takes the mode number, z 
and y size (OS co-ordinates) and window title as 
parameters. It returns 0 if the sprite could not be 
created. Now, screen output has been redirected 
to your sprite so you can PLOT, PRINT and so on 
as if you were outside the desktop. When done, 
the sprite is displayed in a window. Click on this 
with Menu to save the result as a sprite. 

The palette of the sprite is set to the appropri- 
ate default but you may change it using 
PROCvduiy. This behaves as vou 19 but changes 
the palette of the sprite rather than the physical 
colours in use. PROCdeskrop_pa)eUe changes all the 
colours to those of the desktop. This will only 
have a visible effect in four- or 16-colour modes. 

Help memory and D rag ASp rite have also been 
added. Your module should contain an extra 
function called FNxxxjieip which takes two 
parameters: a window and icon handle. It should 
return an appropriate Help string. 

The window handle will be either -I (your 
icon on the ieonbar); I (your result window, if 
you have one); or the 4 reaf handle of your setup 
window. Only in this last case is the icon handle 
valid. As an example, add HexHelp to the orig- 



in tractive help 


•yp, tBio Graph! Graph? 




I This is the Title bar. 

Click SELECT ttf bring the window to the top, 

1 Drag SELECT to nowe the window around the desktop. 

I Drag ADJUST to nove the uindou without affecting the order of windows. 


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inal HexDump module to give interactive help. BDGrapfo, Interactive Help, Vat Cak 
You can claim all available memory (from the and Sprite Sorter all in action at 

Wimp free-pool) using FNchim_memory (base,size), once in Bio. Clever eh? 

The function returns FALSE if no memory is 
available, otherwise base is the start of the block, 
and size its extent (a multiple of the page size). 

The memory will be returned to the Wimp 
free-pool when you finish, Tf your module cre- 
ates a sprite window, the window should be 
created before using claim_memory, otherwise 
there will be no memory to create the sprite. 

As promised. Bio has been updated to support 
Rise OS 3's Drag ASp rite module. To enable 
sprite dragging for Bio and all other compliant 
applications use: *FX 162,28,3 
Graph Plotter is an example of a Bio module 
that produces a window containing a sprite as its 
result. To use, create a subdirectory 3DGraph in 
! Bio. Library and save in it JDGraph. Now run 
3Dclat inside the subdirectory to create the sprite 
file. Install Help for further assistance. 

Sprite Sorter sorts sprites in a file into order. 

This can either be straight (Ascii, with 10 com- 
ing between 1 and 2) or numeric (numbered 
sprites appear before named ones). To use, 
create a subdirectory SpriteSort in l Bio. Library, 
save SpriteSort inside and run Sortdat. 

As a bonus we include Vat Calc , supplied by 
Robert Fuller. There was no room for it in the 
yellow pages, so it is an extra on the disc. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 85 


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HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE EXPANSION FOR 

ACORN COMPUTERS 


DUAL RS423 SERIAL INTERFACE - two additional RS423 serial 
interfaces for communicating with RS423 or RS232 devices eg 
modems (in order to use bulletin boards), printers, plotters, 
instruments, etc. Up to four cards can be fitted in a computer. 

IEEE488 INTERFACE ■ enables up to 14 test and measurement 
Instruments, from well known manufacturers such as Hewlett- 
Packard, Fluke, Philips, Tektronix, etc. to be connected to the 
computer. For example, voltmeters, oscilloscopes, spectrum 
analysers, function generators, counters, logic analysers, 
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16 BIT PARALLEL I/O - provides two separate 16 bit input/ 
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12 BIT ADC - provides eight single ended inputs each with an 
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STEbus INTERFACE - overcomes the limitation of a maximum of 
four expansion cards in a computer by enabling the use of 
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SCSI DEVICES - internal and external hard disc drives, magneto- 
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FORTRAN 77 COMPILER - completely compatible with the now 
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GINO-F 3D, GINOGRAF, GINOSURF and HERSHEY+ - the 

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Infelligersl Interlaces are Bradly Associates disbiPu tor for QNO^F 3D. GINOGRAF and 
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INTELLIGENT 

INTERFACES 


86 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 




STAR 


INFO 









ORTHOPTERA 

RISCOSII 

Programs: MakeRoach, 

Roach. RotRoach 
Description: Desktop bugs 
Authors: Original by Niall 
Douglas, Pinboard version by 
DCA 

Machine: 32-bit (Rise OS 3) 

There have been many desktop 
sillies - ducks that swim along 
the iconbar, little men that 
climb up the sides of your w in- 
dows - but none are quite as 
creepy as Cockroach , sent in 
by Niall Douglas. His little 
desktop bugs love the dark and 
hide under windows; if 
uncovered they scuttle away to 
find another quiet comer to 
continue their roachy business. 

Niall wrote his original pro- 
gram in Basic, like most of the 
listings in ♦INFO, and it 
worked rather like the Rise 
OS 3 Pinboard. First he 
T opened a window 
behind all the others and 
plotted the roaches in it. 

We came across a problem 
though - one shared by all 
desktop sillies of this type. The 
Rise OS 3 Pinboard also 
likes to be behind all 
the other windows and 
this led to a clash between The 
applications. We tried all ways 
and means of resolving this 
clash but couldn’t come up 
with anything satisfactory. We 
finally decided that the only 
solution would be to rewrite 
the roach program in Machine 
Code and patch it 
into the Pinboard 
module itself. As it 




Dave Lawrence and Dave Acton 
present their monthly mix of 
programs, for all Acorn users 



ings - - c 

&< 



Great therapy for all you insect paranoiacs 

happens, this wasn’t as compli- 
cated as we thought and we are 
proud to present Roach version 
2, with all credit going to Niall 
for the original creepy idea. 

There are three listings 
two to generate the 
sprites needed and one 
to patch in the extra 
code. First run MakeRoach. 

This will generate a sprite file 
Cockroach containing a sin- 
gle sprite of the roach facing 
upwards. You could define 
your own sprite - it should 
be in Mode 12, 32 pixels wide 
by 16 high. Don’t use a sprite 
mask; instead, use colour 15 
for any pixels you want 
masked out. Now run 
RotRoach. This takes the sprite 
tile Cockroach and produces 
another called RoachJSpr 
which contains 32 rotated ver- 
sions of the original sprite. 

Having created the 


RoachJSpr file, to install the 
bugs you simply need to issue 
the command: 

♦IconSprites Roach_Spr 
and CHAIN "Roach" before 
entering the desktop. The 
roaches start life under the 
iconbar. If a window comes 
close enough they’ll scuttle 
under it. Whenever they’re 
exposed they’ll dash to another 
window, or they’ll run back 
under the iconbar. 

The basic idea is very sim- 
ple. Bach roach has a current 
position and direction, and a 
destination position. When a 
roach is safely covered it 
moves to its destination, 
chooses another safe one at 
random and moves again. 
When the roach is uncovered, 
the destination is reset to the 
middle of a randomly-chosen 
window and scuttles off as fast 
as its legs w ill carry it. 


Two patches are applied to 
the Pinboard module. One 
adds a short piece of code to 
handle null desktop events 
(which would normally be 
ignored by the Pinboard) 
and this moves the 
roaches, checks if 
they’re hidden and so on 
Another patch is added to the 
end of the window redraw loop 
and this simply plots the 
roaches as icons using the 
Wimp_PlotIcon call. 

While developing Roach we 
realised a good sprite rotation 
routine would be necessary 
and RotRoach was the result. 
Although there is an 
OS_SpriieOp call to plot a 
rotated sprite, the small size of 
the roach meant that the results 
weren’t particularly good. 
Often bits of antennae were 
lost and curves became jagged. 
Since this is a problem shared 
by many who need to rotate 
sprites (for animation in 
games) we thought it would 
be worth describing 
RotRoach on its own. 
You may like to adapt it 
to rotate your ow n sprites. 
Two techniques are used to 
ensure the rotated version is a 
good likeness of the original. 
Anti-aliasing ensures that 
smooth edges remain smooth. 
Imagine a white pixel on the 
original cockroach. When 
rotated, this might not fall 
exactly on a pixel in the sprite; 
it might lie midway between 
two, for example. In this case, 
rather than approximating and 
setting one of the two pixels to 
white, averaging is applied and 
each pixel is set to a shade of 


y be _ 

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STAR [ N F O 


Line-by-line Roach 

If s a while since we focused on a machine code program, and as Roach is also desktop-compatible we 
thought it would be an ideal candidate for an in-depth description. 


70 Set number of roaches. Arm 5 users can increase this a little, 

80 Set number of angles You can alter this but it should be a 
power of 2 and you'll need to change ffoffloacft as well as 
provide the right number of sprites. 

90 Set maximum number of windows to examine. Starting with 
the pinboard at the back, a table is built up containing the 
positions of each window. So this doesn't take too long, a 
I maximum is imposed and windows further forward are ignored, 
i 100 Set maximum roach speed. 

I 110 Set roach size. This is in OS units. You may alter the size of a 
roach but ensure you alter the sprite and RotRoazh too - roach 
sprites must be square, 

120 Name registers 13, 14 and 15. 

130 Read the start address of the Pinboard module, 

140 Get the size of the Pinboard module (stored in the word 
before). 

150 Report an error if the patch has already been applied. 

160 Reserve some space. 

170-190 Copy the old module down. 

200 The main assembly loop. 

210 Set the program counter to &D08 to patch an instruction. 

, 230 Patch the instruction that sets the mask prior to a Wimp Poll 

( call. This is so the pinboard accepts null events, 

250 Set the PC to SD3Q for another patch, 

1 270 Insert a branch into a jump table to call our handler for null 

Wimp events, 

290 Set the PC to &F48 for the final patch. 

310-320 Insert a branch with link to call our redraw routine at the 
end of the main redraw loop. 

360 Our redraw routine. 

370 Preserve all registers except rO and rl which will be set prior 
to return by Wimp GetRettangle. 

380 r10 := roach count, 

390 r9 -> roach table. 

400 The main redraw loop, 

410 Get roach's current position (r5,r&) and direction (r7). 

420-430 Position refers to centre of roach sprite, so subtract half 
of size from X and Y before plotting. 

440 rl -> block for Wimp Plotlcon, 

450 Store co-ordinates in block to form left & lower icon bounds. 
460-470 Store right bound of icon. 

480-490 Store upper bound of icon. 

500-530 Convert direction to string to form sprite name roachXX. 
540-550 Plot roach as an icon using Wimp^Plotlcon. This saves 
the need to build any scaling or colour conversion tables. 

560 Move r9 on. For ease, each roach has 32 bytes allocated to it 
with the last 12 wasted. 

570-590 Update counter and repeat loop for all roaches. 

600-610 Do the Wimp .Getftectangle our patch replaced, 

620 Return to the pinboard redraw loop, 

640-730 A Wimp icon block. 

750 Our null event handler. 

770 Update the table of window extents. 

780 r10 = roach counter. 

790 The main loop, 

8O0-81O r9 -> data for roach rlO. 

820 Read position (r5,r6) and direcion (r7). 

830-870 Work out X distance from current position to destina- 
tion. If less than max speed +4 our roach hasn't arrived yet. 
880-920 Do the same for the Y direction. 

930-940 Set current position to destination, 

950-970 Get a random number in the range -31 to +31. It's easy 
to get a random number in the range 0 to 63 and subtracting 32 
gives a range -32 to +31. The slight weight to the minus side 
forces roaches to left, so -32 is changed to 0 to even things out, 
980 Add offset to current X position, 

990-1020 Add random offset to Y position. 

1030 Is this a new position? 

1O40-1O5O If not, roach is safe and this becomes new destination. 
1060 Skip past the code to move the roach, 

1070 The code to move the roach. If the current direction is D, 
then directions D-3 to D+3 are tried to find which will bring the 
roach closest to its destination. This avoids the need for arc- 
tangents and more complicated maths, 

1080 r8 = direction offset (-3 to +3). 

1090 r4 = distance of best direction so far, 

1100 The loop to find the best direction. 

1 1 10-1 130 r2 -> X movement table. 

1140-1150 Add X movement to current position. 

1160-1170 Calculate X distance from destination, 


1180-1190 Square it. 

1200-1260 Do the same for Y and add squares together. 

1270-1290 If direction brings roach cioserto destination it 
becomes the 'best so far', 

1300 1320 Loop back. 

1330 Turn to best direction found, 

1340-1390 Move roach in current direction. 

1410-1460 Call Wimp ForceRedraw with a rectangle known to 
cover old and current roach positions. The screen will be updated 
by the Wimp by calling our redraw routine if rectangle is visible. 
1470-1490 See if current destination is visible (has the roach been 
uncovered?). 

1500 If not, roach is safe - skip next bit. 

1510 r3 = number of windows, 

1520 r4 = counter used to ensure roaches don't all scuttle towards 
same window, 

1530-1550 Add a random offset to r4. 

1560-159O Bring r4 in range so it's a valid window number. 

1600 Store r4 back for next time, 

1610-1630 Get visible area of chosen window, 

1640-1690 Set new destination to middle of window. 

1710 Store back roach's position and direction. 

1720-1740 Loop back. 

1750 Return to Pinboard module. 

181O-1820 Allocate memory to x and y movement tables. 

1830 Allocate memory to roach table. 

1850 Routine to build list of windows. 

1S70 Move stack pointer down and use stack for 36 bytes of 
workspace. 

1880 1910 Get state of Pinboard window. Pinboard stores main 
window handle in [M2J28], 

1930-1970 Calculate origin for pinboard window and store in axQ, 
ay0. These are the offsets, calculated from the window's position 
and scroll bars (not used by Pinboard, in fact) which must be 
added to a roach's position within the window's work area to 
convert to real screen co-ordinates (for comparison with other 
windows), 

1980 rl 1 = window count. 

1990 r9 -> window list. 

2000 The main loop. 

2010 Get handle of window in front of current one (initially the 
Pinboard window). 

2020-2040 If -1 there are no more in front - exit loop. 

2050-2070 Get state of window. 

2080-2100 Copy window bounds to table. 

2110-2120 Loop back. 

2140-2170 Read XWindLimit and add 1 - this Is the number of 
pixels across the current screen, 

2180-2190 Read XEig Factor. 

2200 Calculate width of screen in 05 units. 

2210-2250 Add special window to list which represents icon bar. 
This is 128 OS units high and the width of the screen. 

2260-2280 Store number of windows, release the stack workspace 
and return. 

23OO-2340 The limits of the konbar (right edge calculated), 

2400 A routine to check whether point (r2,r3) is hidden under any 
of the windows in the current list. 

2420-2450 Convert X r Y to screen co-ordinates, 

2460 r9 -> window list. 

2470 rlQ = no, of windows. 

2480 rl 1 = counter. 

2490 The checking loop, 

250O-2510 Have we reached the end of the list? If so, return with 
EQ set since point must be visible, 

2520 Update counter. 

2530 Read visible area of window, 

2540-2560 If Xcminx or Y<miny try next window. 

2570-2590 If X>maxx or Y>maxy try next window, 

26O0-261O Point is covered by window so return with EQ not set 
using CMN r0,r0 [always NE). 

2630-2730 A random number generator, A pseudo-random 
number is returned in r0. This was invented by regular *INFO 
contributor Nick Craig-Wood. 

2780-2850 Set up the roach table so each roach has a random 
direction and position under the iconbar. 

2860-2900 Set up the movement tables. 

2910 Insert our patched module back into the module list 
replacing the original. 

2950 A function to reserve bytes for a table. 

3000 A function to set the program counter. 



1 grey. The eye is fooled by this 
trick and the quality of the 
image improves* 

Another trick used by 
Roi Roach i s error- spread i n g . 
!n fact, a version of the 
standard Floyd- Steinberg error 
correction is used. The idea is 
to find the closest available 
colour to the one needed (in 
the case of Roach the closest 
colour from the desktop selec- 
tion of 16), You then plot the 
pixel in that colour, work out 
how r much the colour was out 
from the ideal and add this 
etror to the ideal colours of the 
adjacent pixels. So, if we need 
a dark red, but only have a 
bright red available, this might 
be used as the best match and 
the adjacent pixels made less 
red to compensate* 

We anticipate that many 
! more desktop sillies could be 
written using the technique of 
patching the Pinboard module; 

1 if you come up with any we 
| would be delighted to publish 
any good ones. To assist with 
your desktop coding, read this 
I month’s Line-by-line box 
which focuses on Roach. 

CYCLING SHORTS 

Programs: Cycle, Vortex, 

! Water 

, Description: Animations 
! Author: Christopher Bassett 
i Machine: Eight-bit 

i Colour cycling is the tried and 
1 trusted method behind these 
short but pretty animations 
from Christopher Bassett of 
Devon. The idea is to create a 
Mode 2 screen using 14 of the 
available colours in sequence 
to plot objects, like a waterfall 
or spinning wheel. (The two 
remaining colours are reserved 
for black and static objects.) 
Then* at playback, the colours 
are changed to white (or 
another colour) in turn, while 
the others remain black. The 
result is fast and smooth ani- 
mation with no sprite plotting. 

The two programs Vortex 
and Water create screens for 
animation. Run them and the 
files VortScr and WatrScr will 
be saved to disc* Now run 
Cycle and select an animation. 
The screen is loaded and the 
colours cycled. Press 1 , 2 or 3 
to set the speed or the space 
bar to reverse the cycling. 
ESCAPE returns to the menu. 
New animations can be 
added to Cycle easily - just 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 89 



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Offical Order No. or school headed notepaper rained 
order value £30.00 for invoicing odvrvrUe cheque with order. 

Please call to corftrm your order 

(Meet are corrtcut the time of going top ran. E&OE) 


□ BBCB/8*/ rn 
Master 128/ I 
Master Cpa 


Bectron 


□ 


1 



STAR INFO 




add another line of data at the 
end. For each animation there 
are four items of data: the 
name, .screen name, the colour 
used for animated parts and the 
colour of static elements* 

We'H be providing you with 
another couple of Christo- 
pher’s applications as soon as 
we are able to. 


QUICK 

DISMOUNTING 


Programs: ERunlmage, 
DismDat 

Dcsc rip tion : Disc utility 
Author: Robert Adamson 
Machine: 32-bit 


To avoid the desktop getting 
confused it is recommended 
you dismount each floppy after 
use* This entails bringing up 
the disc menu each time, and 
this can be a real pain when 
looking through a whole batch 
of discs. 

So, try this utility instead. 
Robert has provided a short 
desktop application which sits 
on the iconbar. Just click on 
the dismount icon with Select 
to dismount the disc in drive 0, 
or Adjust to mount the disc. 

There are two listings - cre- 
ate a directory called 
/ Dismount and save 

! Run Image in it. Now enter the 
directory and run DismDat in 
order to create the other files 
that you need* If you want to 
save some typing, design your 
own icon, 45 pixels wide by 17 
high in Mode 12 and to be 
called / Dismount, 


Water wheel magic with clever colour switching on the Beeb 

should remember 


RING THING 

Program: Wring 
Descri pt i on : I mpo ssible 
graphic demo 
Author: Albert Hoekstra 
Machines: All 

Not much to say except it 
works on all machines and has 
to be seen not to be believed* 

ONE-LINE CORNER: 
GRID LOCK! 

Program: Griddle 
Description: Logic game 
Author: Andrew Clover 
Machines: All 


Regular 

readers 


Andrew 
from last month - he’s the one 
who wrote the real version of 
our little April Fool wheeze* 

This contribution is a little 
ditty that will work on any 
machine, although Andrew 
originally wrote it on the Beeb. 
The computer overlays a given 
number of randomly- spaced 
grids on the screen. As these 
are EQR-plotted the end result 
is a weird combination of 
black and white areas. 

The idea of the game is to 
clear the screen to black by 
guessing the spacing of the 
overlay ed grids on the screen. 
The spacing of each grid can 
be between one and nine and 
pressing these keys will either 
remove an existing grid or it 
will make the pattern even 
more complex. 

You are asked to select a 
difficulty level at the start, 
with one being the easiest; this 
determines the number of 
frames initially printed on top 
of one another. 

We have added one extra 
feature to Andrew’s original 
game; there is now a small 
buffer which makes it imposs- 
ible to simply press a key 
again if you guess wrong* By 
default, m is set to one which 
means you have to press at 
least one other number before 
you can undo a mistake* 


Upping this to two makes the 
game quite a bit harder A 
value of 0 wdll result in 
Andrew’s original game. Mul- 
tisync owners may like to 
change the screen mode to 
either Mode 1 8 or Mode 25 for 
a better display. 

ONE-LINE BANDIT 

Program: Fruit 
Description: Fruit machine 
Author: DCA 
Machines: 32-bit 

A n other de sk l o p one - liner 

now, following on from the 
triumph of our one-line clock* 

Fruit is a one- line fruit 
machine which uses the same 
trick of creating files on the 
Ram disc* Simply open the 
Ram disc and double-click on 
Fruit. The reels will spin and a 
Basic program (whose name is 
your balance) w ill appear. Just 
double-click on this when you 
want to play again. 

Each game costs £1 and if 
you run out of cash, run Fruit 
again* You win your stake 
back if any reel shows a text 
file. Get the first two reels the 
same and the prize is £3. Three 
m a row scores anything from 
£4 for three text files up to £10 
for three absolute files. Make 
sure your Filer display is set to 
Large icons and Sort by name 
for this one* 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 91 




LEADER BOARD 


r ,*fS it i'jl; 


Virtual Golf is not [ike any golf game you have ever played. Your shot is controlled 
by the movement of the mouse giving a degree of direct control and leer that is 
unparalleled. 


‘I Lttifr RijrMli 


Power is gained by a smooth back swing and a good follow through but chip shots 
will require all the delicate skill and judgement that you need on the course. 
Hooking and slicing come into play by opening and closing the face of the club 
(mouse) and also by a bad swing. 


As with the real thing your primary objective is to improve your handicap which 
starts at 28, When you are ready you can play assessment rounds (which can 
take you up as well as down) and as you progress you will gain the opportunity to 
enter the 6 increasingly competitive tournaments that are included. 


The course (which consists of over 1 Megabyte of data) is based on Wentworth 
and includes hills, ditches, digitised trees, bunkers and paths to create an 
unsurpassed illusion of reality. The greens are varied and undulating to add to the 
challenge that putting demands on real greens and the bail convincingly responds 
to the slightest changes in the slopes. 


In Virtual Golf, the author Gordon Key has produced a simulation that anyone can 
play and enjoy yet will challenge and satisfy even the most ardent golf fan. 

Feat ure s include: 

* Up to 4 Players • Replays 

■ Strakeplay • Gamesaving 

* Matchplay ■ Course Viewing Options 

* Six Tournaments * Extensive Practice Options 

* Animated Course Maps * Driving Range 

* Auto-caddy * Left handed Facilities 




‘ It’s almost worth selling your clubs to buy it ! 9 


No more power meters - you control 
your swing by moving the mouse . 


For AH 32-bit Acorn Rise Machines 
Requires 2 Megabytes £ 34.95 

The Fourth Dimension, 1 Percy Street, Sheffield, S3 8AU 
Tel: (0742) 700661 or 769950 | 1 








SECONDS OUT... 

Program : 0 nTi me$ rc 
Description; Adds the time to 
desktop welcome screen 
Author: Paul Clifford 
Machine: 3 2 -bit 

Our run on "patches' is catch- 
ing on, Paul Clifford of Wood- 
ford Green has sent in a piece 
of code that adds a friendly 
little message to the Rise OS 
st an up banner and tells you the 
time. This makes use of two 
features we have written about 
in the past. Last November we 
showed how files can he 
"registered" into the resource 
filing system and carry a short 
program that uses the SWI 
calls necessary. 

Paul's module also uses 
these SWIs to replace the ban- 
ner text file normally resident 
in Rom. If you glance back at 
the March issue, you'll see we 
covered this file then. 

As the file needs to change 
each time the desktop is 
entered, we cannot simply 
register a file using the Regis- 
ter program from November, 

I ns Lead Paul has effectively 
included a copy of the file , 
within his module, with a gap 
left for the time. 

When the Wimp starts up, 
service call &49 is issued, j 
which is trapped by the module \ 


and is used to alter the time 
string. The new Tile 7 is then 
registered with the resource 
filing system as soon as the 
resource filing system is 
started up. 

This has to be done by 
i n tc rcepl i ng an othe r ser- , 
vice call (&60), which is^ 
issued when the 
Resource F$ module j 
is reloaded or reini- 
tialised - in other 
words on desktop 
startup. 

As Resource FS 
is not yet linked into 
the module system, it 
is not possible to use 
the Registerpiles SWI call. 

If you look in Paul’s code at 
point_to_rest>urce you’ll see what 
has to be done instead. 

One final note about the 
module: the seemingly random 
numbers in the EQUD block at 
resources arc the load and 
execution addresses of the file j 
- in this case, a time stamp and | 
file type (text). The 3 corre- 1 
spends to the file attributes. 

FAN-TASTIC 

Program: Fans 
Description: Fans! 

Author; Pavlos Record 
Machine; 32-bit 

A shorty, but quite pleasant 1 
none the less. Fans is actually 



one- 

liners; the same principle 
applies in each, just the setup 
bit changes. The Fixed option 
draws twenty fixed-sized fans 
on a grid, the Random option 
places 60 randomly -sized fans 
with random speeds at random 
places on the screen. 

Both programs then use a 
simple colour cycling loop to 
produce the effect of anima- 
tion. This may seem quite 
elementary, but have a quick 
glance at Chris Bassett's eight- 
bit colour cycling demos (as 
described above on page 07) to 
see what can be achieved with 
this simple technique on eight- 



RISC OS 3 

© Acorn Computers Ltd. 1992 


Welcome, the time is now 09:57:36 pm 


Time gentlemen please 


SPEED FREAK 

Program: MemSpeed 
Description; Calculates Ram 
speed 

Author: Nick Craig- Wood 

Machine: 32 -bit 

Here's a short piece of code 
for all you speed freaks. It cal- 
culates the speed of your 
computer's memory. On an old 
machine this will probably be 
8MHz. on a A5000 12MHz. 
and on a Simtec Super-Turbo 
A30I0 (reviewed in this issue, 
folks) 20MHz. 

The bulk of the code is taken 
up with a huge block of add 
instructions, each taking one 
cycle. These instructions are 
compiled in the loop in lines 
810 to 860, 

The time to execute this 
block of 25000 ADDS is calcu- 
lated using one of IOC’s timers 
- we can't use the system 
clock as we are switching off 
interrupts. A running average 
is generated (in Basic) to even 
out any fluctuations. 

One interesting note is that a 
fudge factor is needed to get 
the correct result. This is 
because crossing a quad- word 
boundary (in other words 
going from an address ending 
in &C to one ending in &0) 
adds an extra cycle, so the time 
returned will be 25 per cent too 
high - the variable fudge takes 
care of this. 

Another point of interest is 
the function FNarm3, which 
determines whether the 
machine running the program 
has an Arm3 fitted or not. It 
does this by checking the exist- 
ence of the SWI call which 
controls the flushing Arm3 
cache, namely Cache_Hush. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 93 


High Density/SCSI podule (inc drive) £229 

High Density only (inc drive) £199 

We now produce the ex-ARXE SCSI/HD 
systems, allowing you to replace your floppy 
with a high density (1.6Mb/1.44Mb) drive. 

Requires R03. 10 or later. PC emulator 
compatible. A3000 internal version coming. 

HD to HD/SCSI upgrade £49. 


20Mb Floptical disk systems from £349 

Works with most SCSI cards. Disks £15 each. 

v22bis (2400 bps) FaxModem bundle £259 

BT Approved Pace FaxModem. ARCfax. 

ARCterm. and a cable - It’s portable too. 

v32bis (14400 bps) FaxModem bundle £359 

BT Approved USR Sportster FaxModem. 

ARCterm, ARCfax & a cable - It's quick! 

ARCterm 7 £68 

ARCbbs (3 line version) £85 

High performance dual serial card £79 

PC Keyboard/mouse interface £89 

A5000 - 1 70Mb 2nd hard disk £249 

External Fujitsu 496Mb SCSI (over 2Mb/sec) £899 
External 120Mb Magneto-Optical £949 


Insured delivery on modems/storage systems £1()+VAT. 
Education is entitled to a 5% discount on all our products. 

Please add VAT at 17.5% to all prices. Plastic welcome. 


THE SERIAL PORT 



Our shop in Wells is now 
open at 15 Union Street 
(Union Street is next to Dixons) 


The Serial Port 
Rurcott Manor, Wells. 
Somerset, BAS 1NH 


Telephone (0749) 670058 

Fax (0749) 670809 

Modem (0749) 670030 

ISDN (0749) 670883 



SllCCC-SsJ\tC y 

‘ I QlMfgQlM ^ 



GENEALOGY 

(See review in Feb ’87 and Aug ’89( 

FAMILY HISTORY SYSTEM The most popular program ever written for us. 

Enables you to produce a full family tree and many other genealogical listings 

BBC/Master/Compact version £21.95 Archimedes version £25.95 

PAYROLL 

EXTENDED PAYROLL Mow in :ts twelfth year The only BBC 
:e for up to 400 emfijp ,ini 'M 


tax and National Insurance for up to 400c 
Four weekly and Monthly ^ 

of data per employeejoi^ . lVa \ 

employee nforr^f 'YYlC * * 


,rott V> r0ft ' 


raw 


T' 


^ ps acceptable 


V C ortt pfy from hourly 

for A ^-ehsiond eductions, sick pay. SSP. SMP. 
(J0?l rax adjustments and even no pay Three 
types of payslip printout and an optional com analysis. An 
annual contract keep you up to date wrth the budget changes. Send for demo disc 

BOOKKEEPING 

(see review in March 89 Acorn User) 


£59.50 


1} CASHBOOK Double entry 
bookkeeping for home or club use All data 
kept in memory. Three character analysis 
code enables you to know where the money 
comes from and where it goes 48 
transactions per A4 page Analysis summary 
up to 30 categories £1 4.95 

2) CASHBOOK D As I j + random access 
giving 2000 items. CASH/BANK or 
VAT/BANK headings. Password control. 
String or numeric searches. For schools. 
Clubs & non credit businesses. £24.95 
31 ACCOUNT As 2] + Credit facility and 
statements. For small businesses working 
with credit. £39.95 

4J ACCOUNT-PLUS As 3| + Invoicing. 
Orders. Quotations etc. Full sorting of data 
by 5 options. Automated statements. 

Multiple automatic nominal 


ledgers 

For independant schools and VAT businesses 
who wish to cut the effort. £59.95 

5 1 TAXMAN his new program which 

has been under development for three years 
allows you to enter all your transactions and 
to printout end of year results with balance 
sheet and even calculate tax due The Inland 
Revenue love it and so do we Results can 
be taken from our other accounting 
programs and entered into TAXMAN making 
a superb combination £59.95 

6) Micro-Trader is a full accountancy 
package with features right through 
to final balance sheet Stock Control at 
£75 00 extra £235.00 

For shops/firms, accountants wanting full 
accounting facilities Payroll can be 
integrated. £88.13 


mailing labels. 

MAILING 

2 1 8 addresses in memory or up to 1 875 on random access disc. Multiple selected £ 1 4.95 

and repeat labels, marf merge. fuD sorts Ideal for subscription lists, promotions, any 
kind of making £35.95 

1 Ask for detailed brochure for more software and olher items. a vailablc j 

I PLE ASF NOTE OUR MOVE & CHANGE OF ADORESS FROM CORNWALL TcL 0465 82288 Ul — 3 



Whether you want the latest game, advice on 
what to buy, technical or programming 
information, repairs, spares, or just a pleasant 
chat about what's new, you'll always be 
welcome to drop in to see us. You never 
know, you might spot something unusual 
amongst our full range of peripherals and 
software for all Acorn computers. But if 
you're too far away, why not try our mail- 
order service? After all, we're celebrating our 
tenth anniversary this year, so you'd might as 
well make use of our experience! 


6 CHATTERTON ROAD, 
BROMLEY, KENT BR2 9QN 

Tel: 081-460 8991 Fax: 081-313 0400 


94 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 



STAR I INI F O 


VIRTUAL 

DIRECTORIES 

Description: Neatens desktop 
filer windows 
Author: Peter Greenham 
Machine: 32-bit 
(Rise OS 3) 

Peter’s got fed up with being 
presented with a large amount 
of redundant information in the 
title bars of filer windows. A 
directory called, say, 
A DFS: :IDEDisc4. $. 

Peter. Work. Programs need 
only really be called Programs 
as, unless you are a stranger to 
the directory structure, the rest 
of the pathname is largely 
unnecessary. Peter's idea 
combines two techniques we 
have covered at various 
times in ♦INFO. that of 
path variables and the 
Filer_OpcnDir com 
mand. With these he 
has produced vir- 
tual filing systems 
which he calls 
Areas. 

Each area has a 
root directory 
denoted by a 
pound sign, which 
corresponds to the $ 
symbol used by the 
regular filers. Another 
symbol could be chosen 
if you wanted, but beware: 
some symbols, such as $, @ 
and &, have a special meaning 
to the filer and will be disal- 
lowed. In all other respects 
areas behave the same as a 
normal filing system. To create 
an area, first create an appli- 
cation directory, like 
/ Programs . Open this with 
SHIFT double-click and create a 
subdirectory called £. Then 
create an Obey file in Edit 
which contains the following 
two lines: 

Set Programs $Path <Obey$Dir 

>. 

Filer_OpenDir Programs :£ 

Don't forget the full stop on 
the end of the first line. Save 
this as .'Run. Now, if you 
return to the directory contain- 
ing ! Programs (by Adjust- 
clicking the ! Programs direc- 
tory close icon) and double- 
click on ! Programs, a filer- 
window' entitled Programs:£ 
should appear. You can then 
treat this filer in exactly the 
same way as a normal filer, 
after all it is a normal filer, all 



Honestly, this looks much more 
realistic when it's going round and 
round; just like a real piston in a 
real engine, in fact 

that's happened is its name has 
been simplified. The appli- 
cation name can be anything, 
so ! Programs could have been 
called ! Progs if you wanted, as 
the important bits are the 
names in the .'Run file. 

You may want to add a 
/ Sprites file to the Programs 
application, so you're not just 
stuck w ith the boring app icon. 
A .'Boot file might also be use- 
ful to set Up the ProgramsSPaih 
variable - feel free to experi- 
ment. One further advantage of 
this system is that the £ direc- 
tory need not be on the same 
disc or even filing system, con- 
sider the following two lines 
instead of the above: 

Set Apps$Path scsi: : SyQuest 
. $ .Apps . 

FilerJDpenDir Apps:£ 


This could be the .'Run file 
for a directory called 'Apps 
that was on an internal IDF 
drive, but clicking on it would 
open the correct directory on 
the SCSI device. This also 
allows you to effectively have 
many copies of applications in 
different directories - all you 
need to do is to copy the 'Apps 
directory. This would be of 
most use on a network, where 
each user could have access to 
a pool of shared resources. 

FONT-ASTIC! 

This very handy hint comes 
courtesy of Simon Weaver: 
‘When using lots of 
different-sized fonts it is 
extremely painful to wait for 
them to be cached. It is often 
recommended to copy your 
! Fonts directory onto a 
Ram disc to help speed 
things up. 

Unfortunately, this 
method does have its 
drawbacks. Firstly, 
if you need more 
fonts the Ram 
disc is not resiz- 
able and secondly 
each weight needs 
a separate direc- 
tory which eats up 
2K. Then there are 
the / Sprites , .'Run 
and .'Boot files for the 
! Fonts directory itself. 

The cunning solution? 
Register the fonts into 
Resource :$. Apps using the 
Register program from 
November I992’s *INFO. 
This effectively add them to 
the fonts built into Rom. Font 
access is therefore very fast 
and. if necessary, each font can 
be stored in a separate module 
which can then be loaded and 
killed (using *RMLoad and 
*RMKi!l respectively) as 
required. A *FontInstall com- 
mand is all that is required to 
initialise the new fonts, as this 
command initiates a re-scan of 
the current font path.' 

*DISC 

It's amazing the response 
w'e've had to AH Evans' letter 
in April's Questions & Ans- 
wers asking for four-stroke 
engine simulators. In our opin- 
ion the best has come from JE 
Tarrant of Hazlemere, and his 
program Engine can be found 
on the monthly disc. 

As the program stands, 
you'll need about 64K of 


system sprite area configured 
to accomodate the sprite 
' creation. 

It also runs a little slowly on 
Arm2 machines. To cure this. 
, there is a faster program on the 
disc called Engine 2, a super- 
squished version of the orig- 
inal. Pressing FI 2 and typing 
| RM Faster Basic will also make a 
difference. If it is still too 
slow', you could always grab 
; each screen as a sprite and play 
! the frames back from memory 
or disc at a better rate. 

• You'll also find all the other 
♦ INFO programs on the sub- 

| scriber's disc, including ready- 
assembled copies of Robert 

• Adamson's Dismount and 
Christopher Bassett's eight-bit 

, colour cycling demos. 

♦QUIT 

Once again, we’ve run out of 
space and the postbag is posi- 
| tively bulging with submis- 
, sions. Please don't let this put 
you off. though, as we always 
1 welcome your work. 

All but the very shortest of 
! programs should be on disc 
accompanied by quick instruc- 
i lions as to how' to use them. 

Please w'rite your name, 

| address and program title on 
all discs and include a suitable 
stamped addressed envelope if 
you want your disc returned. 

Program explanations and 
further details are very helpful 
and. if possible, should be 
included on the disc in the 
form of a Read Me text file. 
We’ve recently received a 
number of discs with viruses 
on them: we do try to disinfect 
everything before they get near 
the ♦INFO machines, but 
please be extra vigilant when 
sending discs to us. We will 
also warn the originators of 
these discs to get out the rub- 
ber gloves and dettol. 

We also welcome hints, tips, 
suggestions, ideas for features, 
questions. answers, appli- 
cations. requests, short-cuts, 
patches, bugs, features and 
comments. Please let us know 
how we're doing and what 
you'd like to see this pages. 
Above all keep sending in pro- 
grams. because what we w'ould 
like to see on these pages is 
your work. 

Send your submissions to: 
♦ INFO, BBC Acorn User. 
Redwood Publishing, 101 Bay- 
ham Street, London NW1 
OAG. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 95 


Archimedes Hints & Tips 
Compendium 

Over 1 ,500 Hints and Tips about various aspects of using 
the complete Archimedes range of computers. 

Over 200,000 words on disc for ease and speed of reference. 
Available in Edit format on 2 x 800Kb discs. (Paper copies, 
including diagrams, available as an extra.) 

Price: £13 inclusive (or£ii on i. 6Mb disc) 

Send a cheque for £13 (or £11) to: Norwich Computer Services 

96a Vauxhall Street 
Norwich NR2 2SD 

Phone 0603-766592 Fax 0603-76401 1 


n 


nn 


' Turing Tools 


149 Campbell Road, Cowley 
Oxford, OX4 3NX, UK 
Tel. (0865) 775059 


SpoilSport 

RISC OS 3.x System Defense Kit 

"They rename the hard disc... They scramble the 
configuration... They turn off the auto-boot... They do 
factory resets..." Frankly, we've got better things to do 
than dispense sympathy to callers whose systems have 
been trashed by kids. So we’ve written SpoilSport. Not 
as cheap as our sympathy, but better. £20.00 inc. 

IronMask 2.0 

Multi-user File Security System 

File shielding: Password-controlled access to sensitive 
or vital data. Protected files are completely inaccessible to 
filesystems until released. User authentication. Failsafe 
encryption. Directory freezing: Superusers can freeze 
directories of shared software and resources. Contents 
can be accessed freely but modified by superuser only. 
£65.00 inc. (IronMask 1.2 Personal Edition now only 
£49.00) 

Prices quoted are for 1 computer. British Isles 
postage included. Overseas add £3.00. ® for 
educational and site prices, further information 
or factsheets. 


5 

COMING SOON - ISlinker. A low-cost utility which allows 
files and applications to be transferred easily between two 

machines through a serial link. It also has a talk facility. 

Call for further information. 

A § 

c/> 

m 

RISC OS 3 PRM - £99 


A3010 1-4Mb RAM -£129 

IBB CO 

Q) 

- - _Q 

A5000 2-4Mb RAM - £99 

CO 

Aldebaran - £27 

Advance - £105 

MB £ 

Axis - £22 

Almanac - £67 

(0f 

Battle Chess - £26 

Artworks - £160 

Dungeon - £30 

CADet- £158 

Heimdall - £26 

Eureka - £117 


Hero Quest - £25 

Impression II - £150 

si 

Ixion - £22 

ProCAD - £465 

Oh No! More Lemmings - £16 

Prophet - £155 

Paradroid 2000 - £22 

Prophet Demo- £10 

2? 

Quark - £22 

Serenade - £125 

3! 

Sim City - £30 
Spheres of Chaos - £22 

A5000 4Mb, 162Mb 

Technodream - £22 

HD systems - £1875 

Wt 

Virtual Golf - £30 

A3010 Scart & audio 

Zool - £22 

monitor lead - £10.95 

MU § 

This is a small sample 



of our prices. Call for FREEPOST EH2725 

your free 64 page Kirkealdv Fife 

catalogue with special Kirkcaldy, l-ire 


offer details. 

KY2 5BR 



Tel: (0592) 260512 

^ ^ Run by enthusiasts for you 

All prices include VAT and postage 

% Official orders welcome 

• 

w ^ Acorn Authorised Dealer 


96 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 


• A 3000. 2 Mb Ram. Acorn multisync 
muni lor. Vide enhancer, serial port 
upgrade, Learning Curve software. Hot 
Links Presenter and games worth £120 
- £525 ono. Contact Mr J Wimseit, 
Middlesex. Td: 081-898 0447 

• A3000, 2Mb. colour monitor and 
stand, superb condition - £500. BBC B, 
disc drive, mono monitor. Panasonic 
printer, joystick, software - £250. 
Contact Mr J Gayner, London. Tel: 
081-946 4193 

• Wanted: Laser Direct interface board 
for Canon LB P-4 printer, also requires 
Archimedes software and accessories. 
Contact N Duffield. Coventry. Tel: 
(0203) 445174 

• Archimedes 310 base unit in 
excellcm condition, includes mouse, 
keyboard and all original manuals and 
discs, comes with much software but no 
monitor, hence - £350. Contact P Silva, 
Sutton, Tel: 081-643 4337 

# Master Turbo Taxan high resolution 

monitor. 30Mb hard drive and 5.25m 
and 3,5 in double disc drives, Rom 
cartridge, 64 K battery-backed cartridge, 
Teletext adaptor - £350. Contact Mr T 
Wittering, Derbyshire. Tel: £0602) 

307411 

# 288 plus two 128k Ram packs. 32k 

Eprom. PC l ink, printer cable, RS232 
cable fValv 2 £482), excellent 

condition, first - £130 secures. Contact 
Mr W Jackson. Dunmurry. Tel: t0232) 
6 1 0602 

# BBC B. 3,5in disc drive. Plinth, 20 
odd discs, manual - £95 ono. Contact A 
Strange, Somerset. Tel: (0823) 672893 
evenings 

* Wanted: BBC Acorn User issue 
numbers 141. 43, 45, 47-50, 52, 84. 85, 
99 - £10 ono. For sale or swap, issue 53, 
Contact Mr II Ross, Cheltenham, Tel: 
£0242) 231988 

# Watford 32 K Shadow Ram. as new. 
original box. full instructions - £25. 
BBC disc games. Pipeline, Sam 2. Spell 
Binder, Quest. Citadel. Castle Qucsi - 
all £5. Contact Mr T Warner. Clwvd. 
Td: (0978)751673 

• Complete BBC/Master upgrade to 
Archimedes 3 10. medium resolution 
monitor. 4Mb Memc/a, interfaced twin 
80/40-track disc drives in monitor 
plinth, serial link, quality software and 
many games - £700 ono. Contact P 
Thomas, Oakham Tel: (0572) 821313 

# A5000, multi scan monitor, 40Mb 
hard disc, 2Mb Ram, Learning Curve 
and extra software, cost £1799 accept - 
£1399, only live months old. Contact 
Mr J Dooley. Gwynedd. Tel: (0492) 
593321 daytime 

• Archimedes 410/1, 53Mb hard drive, 
4Mb Ram, Arm 3, Rise 3, Midi, 5.25in 
and 3.5 in disc drive, multi sync- 
mo ni lor. Swift 24-colour printer, lots of 
software - £1200 ono. Contact 13 
Moore, Hull. Tel: (0482) 565727 


• Electron. Plus I. Pres Plus 3, games, 
joystick. View sheet Rom, all leads and 
manuals - £185, Sdkosha SOI 900-Plus 
printer - £80. Contact S S ha keel. Lon- 
don SE 1 9. Tel: 081-670 2073 after 6pm 

• BBC B with DFS, as new, original 
box and manual - £75, Cumana 40/80- 
track power supply unit disc drive - 
£75. Contact Mr R Emmerson. Tyne & 
Wear. Tel: 09 1-4 17 1324 

• Wanted: Contact to sell and swap 
Archimedes games. I have got Gods, 
Populous. Saloon Deluxe and l would 
like Gribhly’.s Fervour, Ego etc. Contact 
Mr J Crompton, Oxon. Tel: (0993) 
705434 

• ZH8 w ith two J28K Ram packs, no 
manuals or power supply unit, hence - 
£95. Contact Mi' B Schofield. Notts, 
Tel: (0602) 372874 

• Mega 3 Rom - £50 ono, includes 
Interword/Sheet/Chart. Write to Mr D 
Low less, 82 Main Street. Pembroke, 
Dyfed SA7i 4HH 

• Pace Linnet modem, cable and 
manual, superb condition - £85 ono. 
Contact Mr B Janaway. Hampshire, Tel: 
(0420) 563978 

• Master 128. colour monitor, double 
40/80- track double- sided disc drive, 
printer, games and utilities - £350 ono, 
BBC B+ 32 K, tape recorder, modem, 
joystick, games - £120 ono. Contact Mr 
D Beales, Newcastle Upon Tyne. Tel: 
091-286 3668 

• A5000. 4Mb. 40Mb hard disc. Learn- 
ing Curve, ten games and full year of all 
three Acorn mags including discs, ten 
months old £1550 ono. Contact Mr 
Loft. Tel: (0483) 576779 

• Archimedes software: Render Bender 
I - £40, Corruption (never used) £8, 
Contact Mr B Sherren, Kent. Tel: 
(0304) 372933 

• BBC B. Opus DDos, disc drive, cas- 
sette recorder, 1200/75, Modem, Rom 
board c/w Word wise +, Inlershecl, 
Quest. Paint. Toolkit, printer Rom, 
manuals, mouse, joystick - £200. Con- 
tact M Woodbam, Middlesex. Tel: 081- 
868 5695 


• Cumana &(Mraek 5.25in disc drive - 
| £30, both giHxd condition. Contact A 
i Chilinski, Northampton, Td: (0604) 

413792 

• Pro- Artisan and Impression Junior, 
i boxed with manuals - £30 each. Con- 
1 tact Mr R Jones. Maidenhead. Tel: 

1 (0628)416511 

, # Printer MP-165, draft 40cps NLQ, 
i stands, manuals, cables, good condition. 

| boxed - £120 ono. Contact Mr C Dyer. 

I Cirencester. Tel: (0285 ) 659872 

( # A 3000 with Arm 3, OS3. colour 
1 monitor, Scsi. 20Mb and 50Mb external 
hard drive, Impression EL Pipedream 3, 
j Compression and much more £950, 

. Contact Mr J Crabtree, Dartmouth. Tel: 

' (0803) S3 2505 

| # BBC B, 80- track double disc drive, 

I Speech, DFS. data recorder, games and 
i hundreds of eassettes/discs, cost £320 
self for - £160 ono. Contact P Pankin. 
Tel: (0440) 61318 after 3pm 

i • Two BBC Bs, one with Interword 
1 etc. twin drive DDFS, green screen, 

| daisy wheel, dot matrix c/o Swathe - 
| £200 the lot. Contact M Dunmore. 
i Oxon. Tel: (0608) 81 0002 

i 

• Master 128 - £150. 3.5/5 .25 in dual 
drive in plinth * £50, Master modem - 
£40, Master 512 with mouse. Dabs 

i books and Shareware collection - £100, 
manuals, software. Contact Mr G Hend- 
erson, St Albans. Tel: (0727) 873606 

• A 4 Notebook 4/60 for sate due to 
1 change in school policy, very good 
1 condition, further details from Pip Cart- 
wright, IT Co-ordinator, Norwich, Tel: 
(0603)860505 

• Wanted: Archimedes assembler. 

Acorn desktop Assembler or cheaper 
version, required to link with Ansi C. 
Contact Mr J Montagu, Brocken hurst. 
Tel: (0590) 612345 

• Archimedes 310, 4Mb Ram, double 
i internal 3.5 in disc drives, double exter- 
1 nal 5.25m disc drives. Econet module. 

RGB colour monitor. Brother M-I924L 
printer - £950. Wanted: A3Q10, 2Mb 
, Ram. Contact Mr T Gabriel. Carlisle, 
i Tel: (0228) 810563 


1 • BBC Games (5.25in) - Sam 7, II. 
' 13, 15 - £50 each. Exile. Holed Out - 
£6 each. Contact Mr J Med lock. 

! Grantham. Tel: (0400) 81400 

1 •Archimedes 3I0M with keyboard, 
mouse, colour monitor and printer, 
software includes: DTP, 1st Word Plus, 
i Logisiix (spreadsheet). Pro Art 
1 (graphics). Zarch. IB Mutator, all with 
manuals and licences, boxed as new - 
i £800 ono. Contact Mr M Peters, Avon. 

I Tel: (0275) 333374 

| • BBC Master Compact 128, disc 
, drive, RGB colour monitor. Citizen 
’ 180E printer, joystick, games. View, 

i word processor, complete, as new - 
£425 ono. Contact Mr i Harris, Kent, 
Tel: (0304) 367088 

• 64K/Turbo Electron, two tape 
recorders. Plus I. 3. 5 in disc drive, dpm 
2000 printer, discs and books - £70. 
Contact R Withringion, Essex. Tel: 
(0277)221846 

I 

J • Wanted: manual for Watford Elec- 
tronics Video Digitiser for BBC B (to 
j buy or borrow ). Contact A Craig. Che- 
I shire. Tel: (0928) 575948 

• A 3000 2Mb Ram, Philips monitor 
1 stand - £600 ono, BBC B, 5,25»n 
i double disc drive, monitor, stand, soft- 
i ware, books - £250 ono. Contact Mr W 
| Scott. Oxon. Tel: (0865) 39 1 427 

, • BBC B, double disc drive, modem, 
r many Roms including Interword, 

games, manuals - sell £250 only. Con- 
tact Mr Kumar. Tel: 08 1-902 2519 

• Contacts wanted to swap PD soft- 
ware. replies to all letters, for details 

1 contact Mr O While. 53 Kings Road, 

| Walton-on -Thames, Surrey KTI2 2RB 

I • BBC B. twin 40/80-iraek disc drive, 
i Toolkit Plus. Print master, Wordwise 
' Plus, Prestel, Graphics Extension, Rom 
, board, manuals, FX80 printer - £200. 

► Contact E Epps. Oxford. Tel: (0608) 

| 810573 

J • Chocks Away Compendium £15. 
i Olympics - £10. Interdiclor 2 - £15. 

1 Microdrive - £5. Contact Mr C Fisher. 

' Walsall. Tel: (0922)57814 


ACORN USER FREE READER ADS 

Why not take advantage of our free reader ad service? Fill in the details below and send this coupon (or a 
photocopy of it) to: Free Ads, BBC Acorn User, Redwood Publishing, 1 0t Bayham Street London NW1 OAG. 

Your Name .... Tel: 

Address ... 

Please write your Free Ads details here (in block capitals please). Maximum 25 words. 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 97 



ACORN WORLD... Be Prepared! 


Acorn World ’93 will show you complete computing solutions for 
education, special needs, publishing, entertainment and personal productivity. 



\ Acorn World ’93 offers the entire range of equipment, software and services in one dedicated 
exhibition, comprising the biggest ever line-up of Acom-related products and solutions 

and key topic seminars. 

For existing users, newcomers to computing and other system users. 



Acorn World ’93 is at Wembley Exhibition Centre, 

October 29*31. 


V<e 




1 Come and try the 
latest software, 
equipment and 
peripherals 

See today’s and 
tomorrow’s top 
educational packages 


Enjoy the home 
entertainment 
section 


Test your skills 
with the latest games 

Visit the pre-press and 
publishing area 


Acorn® 
WORLD S S ^ 


Don T miss it! 


Acorn* 


For further information please send S.A.E. to ACORN WORLD, CIO EXHIBITION PLANNING SERVICES, 
PO BOX 162, STAINES TW19 5JX or telephone 0223 254441. 




YELLOW PAGES 

Free programs for you to type in and use 


HOW TO ENTER THE PROGRAMS 

This section describes how to enter and use the more compli- 
cated programs in the yellow pages. A lot of the explanations 
mention the Currently Selected Directory (CSD): for more 
details on the CSD, see the box below. 

*INFO {page 95) 

Infol - lnfo3 

Type in and save all three listings, and set the CSD to the 
directory in which you save the listings. Double-dick on 
MakeRoach and RotRoach (in that order) to produce the Two 
sprite files Cockroach and Roach _5pr. Next exit the desktop, 
type ‘Basic and chain "Roach 11 , and then re-enter the desktop 
by typing ‘Desktop. This will install the Cockroach code. 

. To include the Cockroach into your boot sequence, add the 
following lines to the start of your boot file: 

I con Sprites ADFS : :Mark. $ .Cockro ach . Roach. Spr 

Run ADFS: :Mark. $. Cockroach. Roach 

Desktop 

This example assumes the files Roach and Roach. Spr have 
been saved in the directory $ r Cock Roach on disc Mark, 

lnfo4 - lnfo6 

, Type in the three programs and save them all on the same 
disc. Run Vortex (by typing chain "vortex") to create the file 
VortScr , and run Water (by typing chain "Water") to create the 
file WatrScr. Finally, type chain "Cycle 11 to run the main 
program. 

Info? - InfoS 

To create the whole Dismount application, do the following: 

* Create a directory called / Dismount 

* Double-click on this directory while holding down shift. 


• Type in the two programs DismDat and I Run Image and save 
them inside ! Dismount 

• Set the CSD to ! Dismount. 

• Double-click on DismDat to create the / Run and / Sprites 
files. 

i 

BIO (page 93} 

To convert Bio into Bio+, do the following: 

• Merge the f i I es / Bio. L ibrary. Ton eDia /. Sprites and / Bio. J 
L ibrary. HexDum p . Sp ri tes i nto / Biol ibra ry, BioSpri tes 

• Rename Library.ToneDialTemplates as Library.ToneDial. 

• Rename Libra ry.HexDump.Templates as Library .HexDum p. 

• Move Libary.ToneDiaLToneDiai up into Library , and delete 
the ToneDial directory. 

• Move Libary. HexDump. Hex Dump up into Library , and delete 1 
the HexDump directory. 

• Add the lines in Biolines to IBio. ! Run Image. 

• Set the CSD to inside !Bio t and run Palclat to create the file J 
Palettes 

• Save 3Ddat and Sortdat inside Library , set the CSD to | 
Library , run them to create the files fDSlprites, SrtSprites and , 
"SprSort, merge the sprite files BDSprites and SrtSprites into 
BioSpri tes and delete 3Ddat f BDSprites, Sortdat and SrtSprites . 

• Add the file HexHeip to the HexDump program from last 
time, and finally save SDgraph and SpriteSort inside Library. 
The Bio+ application is now complete. 


Setting the Currently Selected Directory (CSD) 

Some of the explanations above require the CSD to be set to , 
a certain directory in order for them to work. To do this, you | 
i must first create an Obey file (using Edit) containing just the j 
following line: 

Dir <Obey$Dir> 

t Next save it under the name ThisDir in the directory you wish 
to set as the CSD, Finally, double-click on ThisDir to set the 1 
CSD to that directory. 






Info? 

/ Run Image 

* 

COMPATIBILITY CHART 



InfoS 

DismDat 

* 

Use this chart to 

check if a program will work 

on your 

lnfo9 

Wring 

* 

machine. There are two columns: one for eight-bit machines 

Info 10 

On TimeSrc 

* 

like the Model B 

and Master 1 28, 

and one for 32-bit 

Infol 1 

Griddfe 

* 

machines, like the A3GQ0, A400 or A3010. If there is a star for 

Infol 2 

Fruit 

* 

the program in the column then it will work on your machine. 

Infol 3 

Fans 

* 

Special exceptions and hardware requirements are 

listed as 

Infol 4 

MemSpeed 

* 

footnotes at the end of the table. 






Article 

Program Name 

8-bit 

32-bit 

BIO (page 93) 



*INFO (page 95) 




Biol 

Bioiines 

* 

Infol 

Roach 


* 

Bio2 

Paldat 

* 

lnfo2 

MakeRoach 


* 

Bio3 

3Ddat 

* 

InfoB 

RotRoach 


* 

Bio4 

3DGraph 

* 

lnfo4 

Cycle 

* 


Bio5 

HexHeip 

* 

InfoS 

Vortex 

* 


Bio6 

Sortdat 

* 

InfoG 

Water 

* 


Bio7 

SpriteSort 

* 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 99 


PROGRAMS 


♦INFO (page 95) 




770 

BL 

build window list 

1540 

AND 

re,re,#15 

1 2330 

DCD 0 

Listing Infol 


760 

MOV 

no, 80 

1550. 

ADS 

r4pr4,re 

1 2340 

DCD 129 

10 R£H >Eoaah 

(infol) 

7J0 

h tin Ll.loap 


1560 

, pick a_wi ad 


2350 


20 R3M By DCA 


800 

ADR 

r9 , roach...tab 

1570 

CHP 

r4,r3 

2360 .axO 

DCD 0 

Us set Original by Hi*ll Douglas 

610 

ADD 

r9,r9,rio,L5L |5 

1580- 

SU&GE 

ns, r4p r3 

1 2370 .ay0 

PCD 0 

40 R2H Fat RUc 03 3 

620 

LDMIA 

r9, {r5-r7 } 

1590 

BGE 

plek a^wind 

1 2360 .wins 

DCD 0 

50 RSH tc> MO August 1993 

830 

LDR 

rl4, [rMI2] 

1600 

STR 

r4p hide.couat 

2390 


60 i 


640 

SDBS 

e14 h r5 H r24 

1610 

ADR 

rl4,vind_liet 

1 2400 .check, vis: ble 

TO rcaches=8 


650 

RSBKI 

rl4 H rl4,l0 

1620 

ADS 

rl4 , rl4 r r4 f LSL *4 

| 2410 

STM?D (Sp)l r (rfl-rll F lir.k 

80 amcleB-32 


660 

CMP 

rl4 r iinaxjBpised:f4 

1630 

LEMIJl 

rl4 F Cr0-r3 } 

} 


93 jnsx_-rfir4=l6 


670 

BGT 

not .there yet 

1540 

ADD 

rOp rOp r2 

2420 

LDR r 14, axO 

100 juax^spfredsSS 


680 

LDR 


1550 

ADD 

rl F rl F r3 

2410 

ADD r2pt2p rL4 

110 reach,. sise= 64 


890 

SEES 

ri4,r6,r!4 

1660 

MOV 

rOpiOpASR 11 

2440 

LOT r 1 4 , ayC- 

120 sp=I3:link=I4:p 

C^15 

800 

PSBHT 

rl4,r!4 r #0 

1670 

MOV 

rI F ri F ASR 11 

2450 

ADD r3,r3, r!4 

130 Si'S "OSJtadule- 

f 10 ^Pinboard' TO „ 

910 

CKP 

r!4 F e£ax_speed*4 

1660 

STR 

r0<Ir9 F #12I 

2460 

ADR r9,wind_list 

,,piu_addtk 


920 

BGT 

not J:here_yet 

1690 

STR 

ri F tr9 r #16I 

1 2470 

LDR rlOpWins 

140 pin_sisev=3 [pin„addr5s-4] 

930 

LDR 

r5, [r9, 812 j 

1700 

.deat.hidden 


2460 

MOV rllpiO 

150 13 pin_fli2e%>S:i2FC ERROR 27 r "Roach 

940 

LDR 

rS, [rS, 1116 3 

1710 

STHTA 

r9,{r5-r7 j 

1 2490 .check. leap 

eg already installed 11 


930 

EL 

rand 

1720 

ADD 

rl0 r rl0, #1 

2500 

CMP rll , no 

100 DIM COdft% piD_EiEe%*JclO00 

960 

AMDS 

rO ( rOj #63 

1730 

CHP 

rl0 F -roachee 

2510 

LDHBQFD (spl ! , fjfl-TU ,P=} 

170 FOR i^a TO pin .iizeVI S73? 4 

970 

SU3ME 

rOj kOj #32 

1740 

BNB 

nuU.lObp 

| 2520 

ADD rU,rllpil 

18 0 cadeV! ifcrpin^addrt \ i% 

980 

ADD 

r2,rO, r5 

1750 

LDKFD 

tepj ! h { t0-rll hPC) 

| 2530 

LDH1A f 9 ! F {f4-r7 } 

190 NEXT 


990 

BL 

rard 

2760 



2540 

CHP r2,r4 

202- FOR paB&'M TO 6 STEP 2 

1000 

ANDS 

re, re, 163 

1770 

.hide.count 


2550 

CMPOE r3,r5 

210 PROCeet_pc[4D0S} 

1010 

BURNS 

rO p rOp 132 

1780 

DCD 

0 

2560 

BLT check ,iocp 

220 [OPT pasefi 


1020 

ADD 

r3prO, r6 

1790 



2570 

CMP r2,r6 

290 MOV 

r0,#&30 

103® 

BL 

check.vUible 

1800 ) 


2580 

CBPLE r3,r7 

240 | 


2040 

STRN3 

ri;tr9 r #123 

1810 

"ave_x=FNtahle (angles *4 : 

2590 

BGT check. loop 

250 PROCiet_pe(iD30) 

1050 

STRNE 

rl F [r9\ r 116] 

1820 mjve _y±FMEable[ augies* 4.: 

2600 

CMK rOptO 

26S iOPT pass*, 


1060 

3 

roaeh2 

1030 roach_tab=FNtable { roaches* 32 ) 

2610 

EiDKFD isp) 3p trO-ni pPCl 

270 s 

~y.null 

1070 

.not,, there. yet 


1640 [DPT pasa% 


2620 


280 3 


1080 

MVJf 

r6p(?2 

1650 

r build_window. list 

2630 .rand 

STHFD fgpJEp(rl-r4 F link} 

290 NUKBet_(icl«74e} 

1090 

MOV 

r4p#47P000O0S 

1860 

SCMFD 

(sp> j r (r0-rll F link 

2640 

ADR rl4 F ae&d 

300 [OPT pass*. 


1100 

. find .Net. dir 


> 



2650 

LDMIA rl4 F {r0-r3 J 

310 BL 

ray. redraw 

mo 

ADD 

r2p r7p r8 

1870 

SUE 

ap F ap F «36 

2660 

HLA r4,r0,rl,r2 

320 MOVKV 

r0, r0 

1120 

AND 

r2, r2, tangles- 1 

1880 

MOV 

rl F ap 

2670 

STR r4,seed 

330 ] 


1130 

ADR 

rl4 F Bove, x 

1190 

LDR 

rOj irl2,#26] 

2680 

EOR r-0,r0,r4,BOR #16 

340 PROCget_pc l pin. s i z eV) 

1140 

LDR 

rl4p [rl4p r2p LSL *2 

L9S0 

STR 

T0 f [Til 

2690 

LIJHFD {ap].j,Ul~T4 pPCJ. 

3 So [OPT pass* 


1 



1 1910 

SHI 

"pXMimp. GetWindOwSt 

2700 


ISO .3/. redraw 


1150 

ADD 

rl4,n4,r3 

ate" 



2 7 10 . seed 

BCD TIME 

170 STNFD 

(Spj J J {r2-rll P lUk 

1160 

LDP 

rOp [r9 P *12S 

1920 

ADD 

rl.4 , &p, #4 

2720 ,mii 

BCD 1664525 

3 


1170 

SUB 

r0prl4 P r0 

1930 

LDMIA 

rl4p{rO-r5 } 

2730 .add 

BCD 807633393 

380 HQV 

rl0> SO 

1180 

HOV 

rl,r0 

1940 

SUB 

rl4 r r0 r r4 

2740 


390 ADR 

r9 preach tab 

1190 

MOL 

rll.rO.rl 

| 1950 

Sir 

TblpaxO 

2750 ] 


400 .drawj;oach_loop 

1200 

ADR 

r24j.]P3^e_y 

1960 

sdb 

rl4 , t3j t5 

2750 wind 1 i s uFNtebl e ■ 15 *oax_ wind ) 

420 LWfTA 

r9 P {t 5-r7 3 

1210 

LDP 

tM, [rl4pr2 F LEL P2 

1 1970 

STR 

sri4,ay0 

2770 NEXT peBeifr 

420 SOI 

rS, r5 ( broach, alie 

) 



1980 

MOV 

rilpio 

2780 FOR i*=0 TO reaches- 1 

DIV 2 


1220 

ADD 

rl4,rl4pr6 

| 1990 

ADR 

r9 r wind list 

2790 a%=aede** roach tab+32*i^ 

430 SOB 

r6,r6j roach .size 

1230 

LDR 

rfiilfbp #16] 

2000 

.build^wind, .loop 

2830 a¥!0mRflD(220O} 

DIV 2 


1240 

SUB 

rOftWjr e0 

2010 

LDR 

r!4p [ap F A28 j 

2810 aSd 

440 ADR 

n,ieon_bloek 

2250 

HOV 

rl H rO 

2020 

■CMN 

rl4p #1 

2 620 a^!6-RlTDi0J-l 

450 STMIA 

rl, {r5-r6 } 

1260 

HLA 

rll F r0 F rl F rll 

| 2030. 

CMP NR 

rlix#aax_wind-l 

2630- aim^aklO 

460 ADO 

rl4 r r5j#Boach_sLie 

2270 

CM? 

ril, r4 

2040 

BEQ- 

built.list 

2640 s%lU^%H 

470 STR 

ri4, Jrl p JB] 

1280 

MOULT 

r4 F rll 

2050 

S?R 

rl4, [api 

2650 NEXT 


480 ADD 

rl4,r6J roach size 

1290 

HOVLT 

r3 F rl 

2O60 

MOV 

rl r sp 

2660 FOR i%^0 TO anglea-1 

490 STR 

r!4j [rl, B12) 

1300 

ADD 

rB r rBp rl 

2070 

3X1 

"KHimp .GetHindowSt 

2870 a=2 *PI* ( i^/ang lea}' 

500 MOV 

rO, r7 

1310 

CMP 

r8 r S3 

ate ,r 



2890 [ (cade%+rira-ve^(t4'iV;'^mgx_speed*SE 

510 ADR 

rl H icosi JWock+25 

1320 

SLE 

find_best_dir 

2060 

ADD 

T 1 4 , S-p, #4 

M(a) 


520 MOV 

r2, 14 

1330 

MOV 

r7 F r3 

2090 

LDMIA 

rl4p (r0-r3 s 

2390 f [code^fnfflvejf-^i *i^J -i ax.. speed *£Q 

530 SHI 

"XOS^Convert Cardin 

1340 

ADR 

rl4p.mare x 

2103 

STHIA 

r9!p{r0-rl j 

SU) 


ail- 


1350 

LDR 

rl4, [rl4 F r7 F LSL 12 

2110 

ADD 

rll, rll F il 

2303 NEKT 


540 AM 

rLicen. .toloei; 

] 



2120 

B 

build, wind, .loop 

2920 SYS *'OS„HodtileMl;codekp^ 

550 svr 

"mtip_Ploticoo* 

1360 

ADD 

| 

r5,r5,ri4 

2130 

, built., list 


2920 PRINT 11 Roaches i natal l ed- 

560 ADD 

r9 F r9 F (32. 

1370 

ADR 

rl4pjiBve. y 

1 2140 

HVH 

rOp |o 

2930 END 


530 ADD 

rl0,rlO F #i 

1360 

LDR 

rl4, (r l4j.r7*LSL #2 

2150 

MCC7 

rl F #11 

2940 : 


560 CMP 

rl-0, Broaches 

] 



2160 

SHI 

"XOS ReadKodeYaria 

2950 bsf Ratable (size*) 

590 0L.T 

drav.reach.logp 

1390 

ADD 

r6pr6ptl4 

. ble- 



2960 

600 ADD 

rl,rl2 r si450 

1400 

.roachS 


2170 

ADD 

f3pt2p#l 

2970 0*t=size\ 

610 SKI 

"sralaip GetRcctan-gl 

1410 

LDR 

rO.Erm^S) 

1 2190 

MOV 

rip #4 

2960 ^siznV 

e- 


1420 

SUB 

rl, r5 r #ijnax_speed* 

2190 

SHI 

"KOS.ReadHodeVaria 

2990 s 


620 LDHFD 

fsp) E , (r2rrli ,pc} 

4)+ioach_aize mv 2 

i 

1 ble* 1 



3&00 BET PROCaetj:c[cf^) 

630 


1430 

SEE 

r2 J r6 J #isax_,spaed+ 1 

2200 

MOV 

r2pt3pLSL r2 

3010 0*acode%.4af!^ 

640 . icon J3 leek 


4 ) frioacJv.Eize DIV 2 


2210 

STR 

r2p icon. bar linits 

3020 F ^Qtt% 


650 ten 

0 

1440 

ADD 

r3 r rl. r #roach_3i2e+ 

I +8 



3030 EHDPSOC 


660 DCD 

0 

2*(Eax_spee!if4|i 


2220 

ADR 

rl4, icon, bar .lirait 



670 CCD 

0 

1450 

ADD 

r4 J r2 f #raaCb sis64 

a 


1 

1 


680 PCD 

0 

2* (max. apeed+4|i 


2230- 

LDMIA 

rI4pfr0-:3 ) 

Libttng ihtoz 

690 CCD 

*11010 

1460 

swi 

"XWirp. FarceKedraw 

2240 

STHIA 

r9Mr0-r3t ) 

| 10 R3H 

iMakeRoach (infoS) 

700 ECUS 

"roachO" 

* 



2250 

ADD 

rll, rll, #1 

20 mi By 

BCA 

710 DCB 

0 

1470 

LDR 

r2 F [r9 r dl2] 

2260 

STR 

rllpWiaa 

30 REM 

Original reach hy Niall Do 

720 ALIGN 


1480 

LDR 

r3p[r9 r ll6] 

2270 

ADD 

sp F sp„i36 

| uglae 


730 DCD 

0 

1490 

BL 

cb^ck_ visible 

2260 

LDM?D 

(sp) i ( (T0*rll H pb} 

40 ms Far Rise OS 3 

740 


1500 

BNE 

dest_hidden 

2290 



50 REM <c) BAU August 1992 

750 , ny .null 


1510 

LDR 

r3.WLaa 

2300 

- lcoEL.bar_limitg 

60 i 


760 S7HFD 

[splMtO-rll r lihk 

1520 

LDR 

r4, hide .count 

2310 

DCD 

0 

70 KODR 12 


1 


1530 

BL 

rand 

2320 

DCD 

0 

80 DIM roach, aprk 400 


100 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 


15® 

150 

170 

160 

is® 

2 m 

210 

220 

road 

230 

3ocfc5 

240 

25® 

250 

270 

28® 

m 

3®® 

110 

m 

im 

340 

350 

36 ® 

370 

im 

isti 

la 

20 

20 

jl-as 

40 

50 

60 

70 

60 

90 

100 

110 

$£t‘- 

120 

120 

1M 

rt2(? 

150 

160 

170 

160 

190 

200 

210 

220 

230 

,0 

240 

250 

260 

270 

280 

230 

\ 

im 

no 

320 

330 

340 

350 

size 

360 

370 

l*(I- 

0, Cs 

, 0,1 

380 

390 

400 

41® 

420 

430 

440 

450 


PROGRAMS 



«0 

470 oy.t(j=tran0£orp : £ ) , inf) 

460 psPOIHTtOu^l^'iTOtXl) ) 

430 IF p<0 OH p=15 THEN p=4:fiaak4 

-1 

500 rgi(0)4=pal(p,0) 

510 jg^>apal-tp,l) 

520 rgb(2)+^Hp,2) 

530 NEXT 

540 NEXT 

530 SYS apop*, £12c r roach, spr%, roach 
$ r x DEV 2,y DIV 4,-{ma£k<£ubn) 

550 TF mask=subn THEN 

570 gool=0 

58® ELSE 

59® set =selw -mask 

6 03 r=rgb [®] f suba+err Hx, 0) 

61® BBsgll * ) / Bwtijfrerrl (x H 1) 

62 0 Wgb { 2 } / ewba^ir 1 (x, 2 ) 

630 IF r<0 r=® ELSE IF r>255 r-255 

640 IF g<0 g=® ELSE IF g>255 g*255 

650 IF M® b=0 ELSE IF M255 b=255 

660 SYS "CoIaurTraue.ReturnDCOL", I 

r<<8) + (g<<L6}+(M<24) TO gc&l 
670 rjerr=r-pal(gcol,.®] 

660 g _errtg-pal ( gcol r 1 } 

690 b_err=b‘pal(gcol,2} 

700 erri(jt+l,0)t=r jazi*k'/U 

710 err I (x+lj l)+=g. err* 7 716 

720 errltx+l,2)*=b err*7/l6 

730 err2(x+l,0)4=r„errn/l6 

7 4 0 err2 (x+ 1 ,, I ) ■§■ =g _err*l / 1 6 

750 err2{x+l J 2)^ab_.err*l/H 

760 eEr2{x,0}+sr._err*5/16 

770 err2U,l}+=g_err*57lS 

750 eri2fx j&y+sb err* 5/16 

730 IF X>0 TEEM 

600 err2(x-i r ®}+=r_Err*3/16 

610 err2{X-l r D+=g «r*i/16 

62® err2 {x-1 ,2)4 «b ,err* 37 16 

630 EHfilF 

34® CODE geol 

65® ENDIF 

660 SYS spop*, & 13 A, roach _spr*, roacb 
$,x DIV 2,y DIV 4, gaol 
67® NEXT 
680 erri[)^arrl() 

630 err2()=0 

900 GCOL 4 

910 EECTAMGLE FILL (i .HO® 8) *>128 ,102 
4 -138* ( If i Div 6) .size, size 

92® SYS spo®*, #122, it^chjspr*, roach? 
p fi HO® 51*128, 1024 -128* (l^i DIV -BJ,6 
93® NEXT' 

34® NEXT 

350 SYS Bpop*,M0C,roach_flpr* r "Roach. 3 

pi Jt 

36® print" Finished" 

97® BHD 

9S0 : 

99® DATA SF®F0F0 r RD0&3D® , f B-0B0B0 r S3 090 
90 

;&£0 DATA &?07®70 , £5050^303030 , 50gflg 

m 

101® DATA *304030, &00E0E0, S02C000 , &C00® 
D® 

102® DATA SR0E0Efl H &®08®50. r 40&fl0?0,S;F0£3 

0® 

Listing lnfo4 

1® REM >Cycle (3nfo4) 

2® BEH By Chris Coptic r Baa sett 
3® REM For 6-bit nuicbiEiea 
40 REM EAU August 1933 
50 : 

6® DEM file* 25, cote* 100 
7® PRGC&s&em 

30 0H ERROR VM3 20 REPORT : PRINT’" At 1 
ine "j BEL; END 
9® REPSAT 
im HOSE 7 
110 trains false 

120 FRIMTTA5 [13, 0)CHR$ (141) ;CKR$ (130) 

; "Cycle Ride" 

130 PflINTTAB (13, ;CKR?U30) 

; "Cycle Ride" 

1 40 FRlwmE (13.2) CHRS ( 13 2 ) ; STRIKES ( 1 
2 , " ." ) 


1 50 PRI HT TAB (® r 3)? CHRS (129); "by Ctrl s \ 
topber Ba$aett"' 

16® RESTORE 
17® dL-i-0 
18® REPEAT 

19 ® READ aar.e 6 , f n $ t a 1%, c2* 

, 203 IF na=e$$5JOT* FfilffiTILBUBJjCflS 

I S ( r%*65 } ; " - f; name? ; ; nW*+ 1 
210 DKT1L naneS^ErlD" 

2 20 PRINT ' r " Sel ect aniEation ( A- " ; CRR 
S(nV6 4 
33® RS?EA? 

24® ^=GST AND RDF 
25® UNTIL k*>=65 AMD X*<6StH* 

, 260 MODE 2 

270 PROCloadjpic()a-65) 

I 26® VDU 2 3 ; 8 202 r 0 j ®; 0 ; 

I 290 ?ROCauimat& 

| 300 UNTIL FALSE 

310 S 

320 DSF FROCzuiz^te 
33® *FX 229 r 1 
34® spcedVl 
35® 7diiA=l 
36® REPEAT 

17® IF train* AMD 7G*il THEN SOUND 0, 

I -6,6,£pGed*tl 
1 38® pauBoS = I^EYS($peed*) 

390 Ta‘l*=VAL(pauae$) 

402- IF van>0 AND val*<4 THEM speod*^ 
fvalV3)-3 

41® IF paused" " TREK 7®!) ?d£r* 

92® CALL auitt 
43® CNTIL ASC [pause!) =27 
J 440 *FX 229,0 

\ 45® ENDPROC 

( 460 : 

470 DBF PROCload_pic(a*) 

| 480 ?col*=0 

I 490 RESTORE 

500 FOR i*=0 TO a* 

510 READ naE.e!,fnS r cl*,c2* 

520 NEXT 

530 PcelVc 1* : VDU 19,15,02*;®; 

540 IF name != "Train," THEN tralnVTRUE 
550 PR0"O£Cli ( "LOAD 3000") 

560 RNDPRDC 
570 ; 

58® def PRGdoselijline!) 

1 590 8flle*=Un.e! 

600 X*=file| HOD 256 
610 Y*=file* DIV 256 
620 CALL &FFT7 
630 ENDPRCC 
640 i 

650 DEF PROCaeseia 
I 660 0£MTCtla AFFEE : osby te=S FF?4 

| 670 c*=S70:pe*-t7I:dir*=fr72iCOl*-&73 

I 660 ?c*=l 

1 690 ?O"*30 

700 FOR 0ptV0 TO 2 STEP 2 
710 P*±e&ie* 

720 [OPT &pt* 

730 .aniiii 
740 LDA #19 
750 JSR oabyts 
760 LDA #19 
, 770 JSR oavreb 

I 780 LDA o* 

I 790 JSR oswreh 

I 800 LDA col* 

I 810 JSR oswrdi 

820 LDA #0 
830 JSR ostfreb 
340 JSR oawreb 
850 JSR oawreb 
860 LDA #19 
370 JSR oawreb 
860 LDA bk 
890 JSR oawreb 
900 LDA #0 
920 JSR 03-hTcb 
920 JSR |fi«reh. 

! 93® JSR OfiWTCll 

94® JSR Osvrrcb 
95® LDA 0* 

960 STA pc* 

97® CLC 
98® LDA c* 


99 ® ADC dir* 

L 0 S® 3 TA I* 

1010 8 NZ r&at 
1020 LDA #14 
1-030 STA C* 

1®40 .rest 
1050 CMP #15 
1060 SHE end 
1070 LDA £1 
1060 STA C% 

1090 .end 
1100 RTS 
1110 ] 

1120 NEXT 
1130 EHDPROC 
j 114 ® i 

115 ® data "Water", "WatrSor", 6 r& 

116 ® DATA "Vortex ,, ,"VortScr", 6,4 
1170 DATA "EHD","BHD '%®,0 

Listing InfoS 

j 10 REK > Vortex. (infoS) 

( 20 REH By Cbriatopber Baa sect 

f 30 REM For 8 -Me machines 

\ 40 EEH (C) BAD August 1993 

; M , 

1 60 MODE 2 

1 70 VDU 19 , 15 , 7 ; ®; 

60 o=l 

90 FOR < 2=0 TO 35 ® STEP 10 
100 x= 640 ir 512 *SIN(RAD(d>) 
l 110 y= 512 * 512 *COS (RADldJ- ) 

120 did=ii 
130 r =512 
140 KOVS x,y 
150 p =0 
16 ® REPEAT 
17 ® p=p>l 
18 ® GCOL ®, C 
19 ® DRAW x,y 
200 0 = 0+1 

210 IF 0=15 THEM 0=1 
22 ® x= 640 *r *SIH[HAD(dd) ) 

230 y= 5 12 1 r* COS [ HAD Idd ) ) 

24 ® ddsdd *3 
25 ® r=r* 0.96 

260 URTIL p =93 
270 NEXT 
280 GCOL 0,15 
290 H 0 V 3 640,1023 
308 x =640 
31 ® ysS 12 

320 FOR d =0 TO 360 STEF 10 

33 ® IF x ?645 THEM DRAW l 279 ,y:MO\ r E x, 

y 

340 IF x ^635 THEM DRAW 0 ,y:MOVS K,v 
35 ® x= 640 + 512 *S 3 U[KAD(d)l 
360 y= 5 I 2 + 5 Il*COS (RAD(d) ) 

370 DRAW x, y 
38 ® NEXT- 

390 *SAV 2 VertSot 3003 8®00 
4®0 END 

Listing InioS 

1 ® REM >tfater (Info 6 ) 

2 ® REM By Christopher B^saete 
3 ® P.EM For 8 -bit -adhiiiee 
4 ® RFM (c) BAU August 1993 
50 : 

6 ® HODS 2 
7 ® VDU 19 il 5 , 5 ; 0 ; 

80 ; 

9 ® REH The rock 
1®0 ®COL 0 r I 5 
110 HOVE 1279,1000 
12 ® DRAW ll® 0 r 1000 
130 PLOT 85 , 1279,1023 
14 ® HOVE 1279,950 
15 ® DRAW 1100,950 
16 ® PLOT 65 , 1279,0 
17 ® E&VB ® , 102 3 
18 ® MOVE®. 60 ® 

19 ® PLOT 85 , 200,1023 
200 PLOT 85 , 900,600 
210 MOVE 1279,0 
^ 220 MOVE 1279 , 20 ® 

‘ 230 PLOT 85 , 540,0 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 101 


PROGRAMS 


1.930 UNTIL WIWP[K f y)flS 
1910 FOR x=x TO 0 STB? -0 
1920 y=y-I,5 
I 1930 GCOL Sc 

| 1340 PLOT $M*Y 

1950 PLOT 69,K,y+4 
1960 c=c+i 

1970 IF 0-15 THEM c-i 
1930 NEXT 
, 1990 C-OC 

2030 FOR b=-1»05 TO 2,09 STEF 0,52 
2010 MOVE ra£,oy 
2020 x=^+25*StN(p) 

2010 y=oy+2 5 ‘CO-Sip} 

2040 GCMtOjC 
2050 draw x,y 
I 2060 C=C+1 

1070 IF c=15 THEN c=i 
2090 NEXT 

2090 *SAVB' r WatrScr'' J0S0 9000 
2103 UNO 


240 HOVE 700,® 

250 MOVE 300 , 0 
260 PLOT 95, 45®, 150 
270 MOVE 2,0 
260 MOVE 0,4:0® 

290 PLOT 35,200,400 
300 PLOT 35,0,600 
310 PLOT 35,900,600 
320 : 

330 REM Water in the bole 
340 g=l 

3=0 FOR y=954 TO 1003 STEP 4 
360 MOVE 1279, y 

370 FOP x-127'J TO 1076 STEP -(WTO(2U 
+3) 

3B0 GCOL 0,0 

390 DRAM x,y 

400 c«c+l 

410 IF e=15 TKBM 0=1 
420 fpXT 
430 NEXT 
440 : 

450 HEM Waterfall - part 1 
460 nx=2®0® 

470 ny»® 

490 g=®-5 

490 FOR N=1 TO 25 

500 Jt±1100 

510 y=953+RM>(43} 

520 MOVE x,y 

530 jcB = -f™( ll)tl®) 

540 ys=0 
550 REPEAT 
560 GCOL ®,c 

570 DRAW *,y 

530 C=C+1 

590 IP c=15 THEM c-1 

600 K2X4XB 
610 yny+ys 
620 ye-ya-g 

630 lltirlL PQ;NT(x,y)=15 OR y<600 
640 IF x<ax THEM nx=x;ny=y 
650 NEXT 
660 : 

670 REM waterfall - Part 2 
630 REPEAT 
690 cy=nyt4 

700 UNTIL P0lKTf7J! P ayH>15 

710 FOR B=1 TO 20 

720 Jt=mE 

730 y=ny 

740 nx=sx+9 

750 ny=By-4 

730 MOVE Xi‘y 

770 xa=i*RHBj9j 

7E0 ys = -2 

790 REPEAT 

300 GCOL 0,C 

910 DRAM X,y 

320 C-Ctl 

830 IF c*15 THEM C=1 
340 x=x+xe 
850 y=y+ys 
860 ys=ya-g 

870 IF POINT (x,y)- 15 AMD x<9!0 THEN 
REPEAT : y=y+ 4 s UNTIL POINT (x r yl<>!5: ys ±RHD 

ia)-i 

890 IF POINT (x,y) =15 WTO (x>910 AND 
y>200] THEM REPEAT r x=x- 9 :Ot,“IL POINT (X,y 
Sc>15:XB='2+Risroi3) 

890 UNTIL P0'IMT(x,y]=l5 AND y<200 
900 NEXT 
910 i 

920 REM Bcttca. of vat erf all 
530 bx=0 

940 FOE ti=l TO 20 
950 x-1220 
960 y=190*px 

970 nx=nx+4 
990 MOVE K r y 
990 xa=-{7*RffDE13)} 

1000 ya--2 

1010 REPEAT 

1020 OCOL 0,c 

1010 DRAW x,y 

1040 C-C+1 

1050 IF C=i5 THEN e=i 

1060 x=x*xs 

1070 y=y+yfl 


1080 yfl=ys-g 

1090 IP c01fiT[x,yj=15 AM? x>68® THEM 
REPEAT : y=y 1 4 : DhTl L POINT < x , y> ■< > 15 : YS =RHD 
.( 2 ) 

1100 IF P®IHT[x,y)=Ld AMD (x<=68® AND 
X>45®} THEN REPEAT ; y=y+ 4 : UNTI L F0lt?7(x, 
y) <>15 :yg=7*KND(5J 

1110 IF POINT!*, y) =15 AMD x<4 50 THEM 
REPEAT :X=Xt 8 ;UNm P0INT(x r y]*<>15: Xfl = -4 + 
RHDE2J 

1120 QNTI L POlNT(K,y}=-l 
1130 NEXT 
1140 r 

1150 REM Water heel 

1160 GCOL 0,15 

1170 MOVE 85®, 500 

118® FOR p=0 TO 6,3 STEP 0.09 

1190 *=830*200* SIN ip ] 

120® y= 300+203* COS Lp] 

1210 DRAW X, y 
1220 NEXT 
1230 c=l 

1240 FOR p=® TO 6.3 STEF 0,035 
1250 x= 8 50^,90* SIN {p> 

1260 y =300* 190* COS [p| 

1270 MOVE 850,100 
1280 GCOL 0,0 
1290 DRAW X, y 
1330 cec+1 

1310 IF C-l| THEN 0=1 

1320 IP INNEy-99 THEN £=359 

1330 NEXT 

1540 GCOL ®,15 

135® MOVE 882,350 

136® FOR p=0 TO .6,3 STEP 0.09 

1370 MOVE 852,300 

1380 *±852+50*51*1 (p> 

1390 y-300+5®*COS (p) 

1400 PLOT 65,x,y 
1410 NEAT 
1420 : 

1430 S5K The lift and balls 

1440 GCOL 0,0 

1450 WOVE 0,300 

1460 HOVE 100,503 

1470 PLOT 95,0, 600 

1480 PLOT 95,100,600 

1490 HOVE 500,1000 

1500 PLOT 85,100,500 

1510 PLOT 65,600,1000 

1520 c= t 

1530 K=0 

1540 y=50® 

155® REPEAT 
1560 GCOL 0,c 
1570 PLOT S9,*,y 
1580 PLOT 69 ,x,y*4 
1590 x=x+0 
1600 c=e+l 

1610 IF C^IS THEN C-1 
1620 fflffilL x=72 
1630 x-100 
1640 C=C-1 
1650 REPEAT 
I860 GCOL 0,c 
167® MOVE X, y 
1680 DRAW x-25,y 
1690 PLOT 69,x-25,y+4 
1703- PLCT 69, X-25 , y + 8 
1710 yoyfft 
172® x=x+B 
1730 c=c*l 

2740 I? G=15 THEN C=1 

1750 UNTIL y>B6S 

1760 k=c 

i?70 <si=x*a 

i7as oy=y-3 

1790 XB=0 

■90® ys^8 

1913 g=0. 5 

1820 x=x-25 

1930 REPEAT 

1940 X=X4XS 

1850 y=y+yB 

1860 y3=ys*g 

1970 IP POINT (x,y] <>15 THEN UCOL 0,CiP 
LOT £9, x,y ; PLOT 69,x,yt4 
1980 c=ctl 
1990 I? c=15 THEM c=l 


Listing Info? 

10 REM MRunlnage {Info?) 

2® REM Icon bar ’Dieeount carmand 
30 REM By Bobert Adams-cn 
4® REM For 32-bit Tachinee 
50 RRH (C) BAU August 1993 
60 : 

70 taaRnaBie5i''DiginCTjnteT ri 
80 DIM iI®,BWDutni£% t!00, template 
s% t5®,inairt. 5 300 

9® SYS -Wiiii|)_lnitial iae" , 200, 64 B5 34 15 
4, EasSmausJ 

lea oh eerOr paODfatalerrorttastciaseS, 

REPORTS, ERL, 3RE) 

11® PROCinit 

12® OH RRRDR PBOCerror ( ta sXGMie $ , REPDR | 

TS,ERL,ERR^ 

130 WHILE KDT flllitt 

140 SYS *111(80 TO 

150 CASE rt OF 

16® WHEN 2: SYS -Wijjip.OpetiMindo^, 

170 WHEN GiFflOCiiQUHSli^^Ui^fiffiq 

V 12,5^16} 

180 WHEN 9 1 IF 2^1 nuit%=TRm 
190 WHEN 17, 18: IF q%3l6=0 gUitV±TRUE 
20® EMDCASE 
210 ENDHHILE 

220 SYS "Wimp .Closedown" 

230 END 
24® : 

250 DEF PROTin&iJfetaOiUee)A,JWLisey%,b^,b 
gndle’&f itccfls-) 

260 IF haitdle%= - 2 THEN 
270 CASE b% OF 
280 WHEN 1 : * AUFS iHOliat 0 
290 WHEN 2: SYS "Wizp ,Drea teMer.u* , 
iaa»nu^DMiv«^64 , 184 

3®3 WISH 4 ;*AD?S; Dismount | 

310 EMDCASE 
320 ENDIF 
310 ENDPROC 
340 : 

350 OEF PRQCmaXemeEiu 
360 mairaflenu^riBemiptfi 
370 menumax^^T 
3 SO ne^ nuptrt! 20^44 
3J® fmenti^tr^staBhciameS 
400 Eenuptr^712=:7 
410 cenupt rA-7 1 1=2 
420 ai=nuptr^?14=7 
430 seaupt 1^715=0 
440 maxad-dr^teenup t rti-l 6 
450 menuptr^!!24=0 
460 Eienuptr^*=28 

47® PROCroenuitea( JT lDft? n ',infohaiMi%) 

490 FR0Cffier;uite?3("iMiit , ',-l} 

490 nueauptrV-24 = tMaujltElt!-24) OR 69® 

500 !wxaddrH=Gienu£i3A*16*12 
510 EMDPRQC 
52® s 

53® DEF PR£)Cmenuitemitext8 P Syb^^) 

540 Eer:uptr^I0=0 

550 jDenuptE^L4 = eubEjeau% 

56® »nuptr\l8i£07®00®21 
57® $ < taenuptr^t 12 J =textS 
59® ffl0nu.ptrl£,t;24 


53® 3STPRQC 
60® : 

61® DBF PROCinic 
620 fluirtsPALSS 
630 Eemiptrt=raaubuf* 

640 meDend^meDubuf^i-SlOO 
650 baEicon^=FNba^ieon^'2diaMUElt J, , 15, 
17) 

660 indite 

670 SYS "Wimp .OpenTemplate", ,*+oheySDi 
r>.Terplate0 n ‘ 

6R0 inffiAand^^FNcreateuipidowf "prcglnfo 

-i 

690 SYS ■ u Wil^_ClcseTffiI^J^late 4, 

7®0 PROCmabeiwinu 
710 EKDPROC 
720 : 

73® DSF PNbatfcon { &p c aoe S , *A , h\) 

74® LOCAL icou% 

75® :c^N=® 

760 ^S8=®:(J%!12=^*2 

770 g%’l6=hi*4 

780 20-6301A 

790 St^24^spnani.eStCHR|0 

900 SYS J 'WiBip_CreatelCbn JJ , , ^ TO icooft 

910 =icon% 

920 i 

83® DEF Ffttreatewiadow (naroeS) 

94® LOCAL hand* 

650 SYS u Kic 1 p_LoacTeB«?l3te'',, teiEplatea 
ib,iEdVindir\t£2F?,-i,iai^S,0 to ,,ind\ 
860 templates*! 6 8=10+ ( 10< < 16 } 

870 SYS *Wiinp_C£eateNindG«" , , tempi atea 
% TO haud^ 

89® =tsand.V 
89® i 

90® DEF PROCfat a terror ( progS , repS , erl* 
,eri*) 

910 !tft=3RR 

920 J(4%+4: =progfS+ J1 has suffered a fat 
al error: ,, 4fepS + " (type=' r +STRSerr*4' , J i 
nternal error ood&: J, +STRSerl^+ rf ] and mu 
At exit ismed lately- ■ M +CRR60 
930 SYS *Miwp_ReportError-,^,2 
940 SYS “Hinp^CloseDDim" 

950 END 
960 IpPROC 
97® : 

990 02F RROCerror (progS, repS, erl*, err* 

3 

99® LOCAL response* 

1000' !<j*=£ER 

101® S(e^*4)=" , D[iexpected error: ' r 4rep$+ 
" (Internal error cede: ,r +STRSerl*+^) , S 
hall l guit?' T +CHRS0 

102® SYS ,M >iimp_ReportError rr j q*, 3 TO ,re 
apgnae* 

1030 guit*±(reBpoE3e*-l) 

1040 EHDPROC 


Listing InfoS 

10 REM >DiecnDaf (lnfo9) 

2® REN create files for i Dismount 

30 hen Fiie& created by Hobert Ad 

amsoa 

4® REN For 12 -bit machines 
50 REN (0) BAU August 1933 
60 : 

70 frs&^HIKEH-BNU-fieogO) AND &FFFFE 

®00 

80 DIM 0* 4100, w* free* 

9® REPEAT 

10® RMD fiie5 
11® IF £ile'f<>**F- THEN 
120 PRINT flies 
130 READ type^fOlen* 

140 IF tiT^-AFFF ®E type*-£FFE OR t 

ype*=bF3B THEN 

150 uitt*=0IEMOUT(file$) 

160 REPEAT 
170 READ Hne$ 

180 IF |inaSs>" 4 | &POT3out*,iina6 

190 3MTIL Iine|=^ jr 
20® CLOSBtiout* 

21® SYS J '0S_PileM8, fiieS, type* 
220 ELSE 
230 line*=3 
240 


102 BBC ACORW USER AUGUST 1993 


RROGRAIVIS 


25® i%-0 

26® WHILE iVoleiA 

27® b^FNe 

2|0 IF bS>="a" m $&■*■“ THEM 

290 efffe-BVALi-t^FSe^nrc} 

3®0 FOR K%=0 TO (ASC(b$^isC-a%2 

t 

310 w#k^7(i\4*Ef*} 

32® i*t=l 

33® NEXT' 

34® ELSE 

350 ^ffl&iEvM l, 4c J, +bS+ra5) 

36® 

370 ENDEF 

360 ENurarLE 

390 sys *os _f i te“ , 10 , f a lei , JtypeV, « 
*,,tfA+olea% 

40® 3NDIF 
410 KMD3F 
420 UNTIL file$=“*" 

430 END 

440 E 

450 DSP Fife 
450 LOCAL 0$ 

410 IF THEN 

460 SEM d$,ch$ 

490 line&'jl 
500 $dH=dS 

510 SYS "O5JIEC",0 r q> r q\+l£H!d$),l. TO 
crcV 

520 I? ) FSINT^eto 

r in data line " ; 1 ine^c. : END 
530 ENDIF 
540 C$=LEFT$(d$,l) 

550 d^m{d$,2) 

550 -cf 
570 i 

560 DATA "lRun H r 4FEB 1 t54 
530 DATA WiropSlot -sin L6k -=ax ISA 
600 DATA IcDDSprites <Ohey$Dirj .! Sprit 
ea 

610 DATA Run <Ob 0 yiDir> J Runlmage 
620 DATA * 

630 DATA "Templates", APEC, 42 05 
640 DATA ?FF?PFFP00000030fl®4c®?2 ,B37F 
650 DATA Ca®DD90lC00001fll570726F r 2435 
660 DATA 67436E666F0De21S0a2Hla r B2AE 
670 DATA lCFk0200S03eb21e3gh44l2,754F 
660 DATA 0fl0094070207010C0EalDb4,F419 
690 DATA 9a596A0®B003DHb3tti$4b«,«964 
700 DATA CTB|6&b78l3a7909aM&M219 
710 DATA 1 9 Ba8 96 6aS9e6a.913D61®00, 1 2 63 
720 DATA 7eBe2428a2®CCs20FCe2®9D,FlDl 
730 DATA in2064e4®94e40A8ffi.4030a60, 4078 
740 DATA 6®e6®B7 684 lEs2080®7C8i2, 9862 
750 DATA 03EaPFD®aS5bA8F6aED3900,3EB 
760 DATA M174E616D653A0D6C65643, 3305 
770 DATA RSD?E0EaF29Ce20C4s20507,A795 
760 DATA 572706F73a23a2®b646Se40,AA67 
7 90 DATA 9®e4®4 17 574 686 F7 2 3 A0Df 4 f 9 8B2 
600 DATA 03 8e6®bA®b6®566 57 273 6 9 6 , B 37C 
61® DATA F6Ec4®4 162 6P757 42074.6 06,4671 
62® DATA 97 3 205®7 2 6F6773 6 16E0D4 6 , 1D7 D 
63® DATA 6C6 F7 0707920446 973 6D6F7, 8 3®A 
64® DATA 56B?465720 DJi®B 0D526P626,9641 
65® DATA 57 274204 1 64 616D736P5E0D, 4546 
660 DATA 312E3®3220293I322D4D617 r D44A 
67® DATA 22D393329nll290D,45C9 
68® DATA ■’ISprites'", &FF9,.&368 
69® DATA 010®00®01®a046C®30B005C r 32^5 
90® DATA A04 216 46973 6D6F756 87* &L r 7C71 
910 DATA 605slCa23®0l3a2 820a2CC4- , A56® 
920 DATA a310Ccl4fi4elAb21l044440 r 102R 
930 DATA 2£®F7 547 l4Bc 36407 7 777 77 , DFDB 
940 DATA 77757d427377776735fl4D50 r 27Dl 
95® DATA 7757453333557647b5B20e2 r 3D4C 
96® DATA 4c0B0®32c6C6®77a5Al0717,7BA3 
57® DATA 70372gl92®h35307707b060, PB33 
960 DATA 300107 6M0 555 5b&7 3 4aB£7,ClSD 
590 DATA 727 eA470e7®c7 504 160003d, 3 17F 
1«®0 DATA 61c3AJjl041®053767767bF6 J 2DDB 
1010 DATA ff AlaA6670074b2 664 900747,37 24 
1020 DATA 7 14 4 44 4040074 570077 b9lg,D9 10 
1030 DATA ®C61dCD107 60 16 7aPE 3 1 f FF, 10E6 
1040 DATA 0®b27eDB07 54 hl4 c DleG 204 ,2165 
1050 DATA 30CFEA0AAC®6AAAA75AAAAA,A2FB 
1060 DATA AAAAAAA5 AA4AAAA0Af 18bl3 , 1 A®9 
1070 DATA 74dL37Aal6bl9a30a2Da2C4 r 833® 
1030 DATA 7d30d®70A<sl5d44b0£AA0AF, 7405 


1090 DATA ®F?00FFFFFFFFa04t*370000, 9BDA 
1100 DATA F0FFFF0FbEBF0FFa0Agl?e®, 1BC4 
1110 DATA CCl8i2Pg23miao2Ab4C®Pnl,27A2 
122® DATA S$G 4rl 9fl€6e6A j 92a9D®FaA, 3 2A2 
1130 DATA 2a98n7DFF0Fh6Bl30bBAc30,C3D7 
1140 DATA n4 9b91d 13 lAFal 0d601 490F , 2 2A3 
1130 DATA dCieCBaDDr43fe31cA8nF4a4,D®F6 
116® DATA AaC®qF30FrlSdC4 FF , 2 EDI 
1170 DATA * 

Listing lnfo$ 

1® RSH >Hring ( laf o9 > 

20 KBH By Albert BMkstra 
3® REM For all machines 
4® REH (e) BAD August 1993 

5 ® : 

6® r=42® 

7® S-1 
30 q=l 

9® delta-0.3 
10® tel/2/delti 
110 m=i/£elta-4 
120 y0=r/k 

130 Iy0arMl"delta}/m 
14® dr^delte^r 
150 HODS 1 
16® VDD 29, 640; 512; 

17® mr 19,2,4,0,0,0 

13® GCOL ®,1 

19® GCOL 0,(12047) 

203 CLG 

210 FOR <1-1 TO -1 STEF -2 

220 MOVE -r*q,dr*q 

230 FOR y^0 TO -y0 # q STEP -S*g 

243 xI=-PNXfyPq 

250 DRAW 3cJ r Y 

260 IF imy/snuwJBn then draw s 
I, yfdr*g;KOVE *l,y 

270 NEXT y 

230 FOR ye-y®*q TO y®*q STEP E*q 
290 DRAM FNK(y)*q,y 
300 NEXT y 
31® yb=ly0*q 

32® FOR y=yb TO 9 STEP -S*q 
33® Xla-FN^fy^q 
34® yl=y+dt*q 
35® DRAW j£l,yl 

36® IF INT£ [yt-yb] / s/2]is{yl-yb) /s/2 
THEN 400 

37® IF ABE(y)>dr/2 TkEN Ujn=dr*q EL 
SE iija=2*y 

330 DRAW 3d,yl-lijn 

39® HOVE xl,yl 
4®3 NEXT y 

410 FOR y-0 TO -ly0*q STEP -s*g 

42® Kl=-FNlK(y)*g 

43® yl=y4dr*q 

440 DRAU xl,yl 

46® wm y 

4.60 FOR y--ly®*q TO -dt/2*q STEP a*q 
47 0 DRAW FHIk ( yl # q, y*dr*q 

460 NEXT y 

490 VDfl 29,640? <5i2+dt); 

500 GCOL 0,2 
510 HEAT 
52® END 
530 : 

540 D3F FNx {y} = SQR (r * 2 - (fc* y S ‘33 
5 60 s 

560 DSF FNLr (y) 

570 Kiou^r-drl^^^yra) 

5ft® IF xxx < 1 E -4 xxx=0 
596 rSOR(xxxJ 

Listing InfolO 

10 EiN >OaTiJsaSrc (Iufol®) 

20 RFH Display tAe tipe 03 tba Ei 
bc OS 3 irfelcDoe banner 
30 HEM By Paul Clifford 

40 REH For Riie OS 3 

5® REN (e) BAD August 1993 
60 : 

70 DIM cDd^ 1060 
B® FOR puefettlM TO %ma STEP 2 
90 ?%*Q:Q\--q cde% : ^ c cd^\.4 1 OC0 
100 [ opt pas3% 

110 -aqud 0 


120 

aqud 

initialise 

130 

equd 

finalise 

140 

egud 

service 

15® 

egud 

title 

16® 

equd 

help 

17® 

equd 

® 

15® 

equd 

a 

190 

equd 

0 

20® 

egud 

® 

21® 

aqud 

0 

22® .title 



230 

equs 

"He Icw^TiRe^+CEtRf 

(0) 



24® 

align 


250 .help 



260 

equs 

"We lecroeTime n, 4CBPS 

£9) 



270 

aqua 

"1.01 £12 Mar 1993 

) by Paul Cliff ford*+CflRS(0) 

280 

align 


290 .initialise 


30® 

Btmfd 

rl3J,{r®-r7 ,rl4) 

31® 

bl 

changc^time 

32® 

adr 

r®, resources 

330 

ewi 

“ XEeeouroeFS_R8gi a 

terFilea* 



340 

Idmfd 

rl3Lj (r0-r7 ,pc) 

350 .finalise 


360 

etmfd 

rl 3 1 , (r0-r7 ,rl4J 

370 

adr 

r0, reaourcea 

360 

swi 

n XResource?S_Dsreg 

isterFiles"' 



390 

Idmfd 

rl3],[r®-r7 ,pc} 

400 .aarvice 


41® 

cmpue 

rijt49 

420 

beq 

change time 

430 

crop 

*1,1660 

44® 

beq 

point Co_ re sources 

45® 

aov 

pc,rl4 

46® .change .time 


47® 

stmfd 

rl3J,{r®-r3 ,r!4) 

460 

adr 

rl, timejbloo}: 

490 

mov 

r®, #3 

50® 

etrb 

r®, [rl] 

510 

mav 

r0, tl4 

520 

awi 

"OS. Word" 

530 

K0V 

r0. rl 

540 

adr 

ri,tiS£__atftEE 

550 

aav 

r 2 , 9t ime_end- tice_ 

scare 



560 

adr 

r3,tiEe_state 

570 

awi 

J, OS„ConvertDoteAiid 

Tice 11 



580 

aov 

r®, |l® 

590 

atrb 

r®,tiroe .end-I 

600 

Idrofd 

rOl,{r0-r3 ,pc) 

610 ,time_blac3t 


m 

equd 

0 

m 

aqub 

0 

640 .time state 


65® 

equs 

1il2:l6ffii:^8e %JKa Ji + 

CURS £0} 



660 

align 


670 .point to_ieeoy roes 

680 

adr 

r0, reaourcea 

69® 

iflGV 

rl4,pc 

700 

roov 

pc, r2 

710 .resources 


720 

equd 

blank-P^. 

730 

equd 

ifffff f43 

740 

equd 

4d46fb£88 

750 

equd 

file..end-filo_5tar 

t 



760 

equd 

3 

770 

equs. 

"ResourcEfl, Desktop 

.Heasagefl"fCHR$(0) 


780 

align 


79® 

equd 

4 if a le^end-f i le_et 

art 



800 ,£ile„start 


810 

equs 

"R03:RI3C OS 

R$(10j 



820 

equs 

J, COpyRt : r '4CHR$ ( 169 

)*" Acorn Computers Ltd, 1992 w fCHR$(i0) 

830 

aqua 

"lait-jRlieoM): the 

time ia now 

- 


940 r tine_etart 


850 

equs 

«iai‘.xz-.-xx xx" 

960 

equh 

10 


870 ,tioe_end 

890 equs "FrerNCHRSU®) 

1 890 eqits "'Alaoii^Run Resour 

GeejS.Apps, EAlarm i, tCttR6(10) 

90® equs "Cale:^itun Resourc 

esiS.AppB i! Calc'+CBS$( 10) 

91® equa "Cd!tra:9JtddTiEyDir 

Resource si : S ; Apps , l Cbars fl +CKR? ( 10) 

920 eqTifl "Coufig:l£RiiD Eesou 

rees s 8 . Apps , ! configure "4 OHRS ( 10 ) 

930 equs "Braw:^Run Resouie 

aa : i , Appa . ! Draw"4CHE9 ( 10 ) 

94® equs ‘ T Edi.t: , 6Run Roa&urc 

eBiS.AppB.'Edit^CHRSd®} 

95® aqua ,J Help:^tua Reeourc 

e a t $ . AppB . ! Help ^CHRS £ 10} 

96® egue "'Paint [%Rtin Resour 

ces: S, Apps . I Paint "+CHR9 ( 10} 

970 aqua "'DesXtop : DesAtop* 1 * 

CHE } (10) 

930 .£ile_end 
990 align 

1630 .hlanlc 

1010 equd 0 

1020 ] 

I 103® NEXT paasft 

104® 3 

105® SYS "0S_File F , 1®, "paTimfi'", tf £a, , tro 
de^,0% 

Listing Infoll 

1® REN ? Griddle (Infoll) 

1 20 REH By Andrew Clover 

I 30 REN For all machines 

40 REM £c) SAD August 1993 
50 : 

I 60 INPUTS :nul:HOD£4;V0D23; 82®2 ;0;0;0; 

s FDRaa ITQ b i X^RND ( 9 ) : FDRb=0TOl23 0STEP1" 4+ 
4 ; GC0L4 , 1 : HOYEb , 0: DRAWb, 1024 ; HOVE0 r bj DEA 
I H12I0 , biNEXT : NEXT i a?=“ " ? RBPEATREFEATigS* 
GETS rgaVALg^ ; DNTILg^=STR J g AND ISSTRCaS, 
g6 ) =0 ; FOSa=0TDl2 30STEPg*4 * 4 tMOTBi , 0 : DRAW 
a , 1024 : MOVE0 , a S DRAW1 28 0, a 3 NEXT E aS=RIGKTS 
: UNTIL FALSE 

| 

Listing IniolZ 

I® REH >?mit {lnfo!2) 

\ 20 REN By DCA 

I 30 REN For 32 -bit sacJiinea 

40 REH (c) BAD August 1993 
'* 50 : 

| 60 rpRAN:E^iSISS,S,rSTOa, r , P ;pie*p 

+5- 5 * e ; DIKl 9 9 ;w=44 S®C® : SYSwj 200, 44B 53 4 1 
I 54 , PADS t r? 3^1 3 1 FOR j = -36H3-9 ii =2+] H£>D(j/ 

, 9 ] : r?i =7 ANDSKDj £: S3 1 U , '"RAN: “ *STR$i HOT* 

?i : SYS66TOt f SYSwt33 ,, rd , 1 1-15 : NEXT :p - = 1 - 
! 5GKIN6TR { 5r , CARS®} +3 1 * { 7r a rll ) * ? r- ( LE FTS ( 
Sr } =RTCBT9 1 Sr , 2 } ) : SYS4 1 T 27 , r$ , , 2 : SYSWf 2 9 
: EFp SYS 8 , , LEFTS ( f$ ) ^STRSp , -12 30 , p, PAGE, 
TOP 

Listing 1nfo13 

1® rRH >Fans (lafoHI 
2® REH By Pavlos Record 
30 REN For 32-bit nanhineB 
4® RSH fc> BAD August 1993 
5 ® : 

6® PRINT •" I F) ixed or (R)andon 
7® CASE GET? OP 
8® 

9® KEEN "P", "f7: 

103 KODX12 rOFF : r = 1 28 i M : F0Rx^?T04 : FOR 
y =0TO3 : ORTOINx*256 tr, y * 2 56+r i d=SGKRND t a= 
Rim{363 *10 :FORci1TD15*£:GCOL(c H0D15)*1; 
HOVE®, 0 : KOVEr* SIKRABa , r *C0£RAD& : a+±d* 24 1 
t i PLOT* S r r* 3 INRADa, r ‘CCSRADa : tlHXT , * :b= 1 1 
REFEATWAIT : FORa- 1T015 : COLODRa, b * 16 , bd 6 , 
0;b^il iHSXTt QNTIL0 

I 11® 

I 120 WHEN 

1 30 NODE 12 \ OFF ? F0Ri=lT06® i OR I GINRND { 12 
^ 80) , RND( 1024 ) ;r=644END£1281 ; S.sr*4if^RHD( 

| 5J; d=3GNRND; nftHD £ 36 ) ' * 10s PORO=0TO1 1 FCRc- 

| 1T01 5* i : GCOLO* £ (C HODI5) + 1 ) :NOVE0, 0 : HOVE 

r*£IKRADa , r^COSRADa ; a r=d*24 / f ; RL0TB5 , r * 3 
I I NRADa , r*CQSRADa jHEXT : r- =4 s NEXT, ;b= 1 3 REP 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 103 


PROGRAMS 


BATWAIT:FORa=lTO15:COLOURa,b*16,b‘16,0:b 

♦=1:NBXT:UNTIL0 

140 

160 ENDCASE 

Listing lnfo14 

10 REX >Me=Speed <Infol4) 

20 REM By Nick Craig -Wood 
30 REX For 32-bit machines 
<0 REM fc) BAU August 1993 
50 : 

60 cycles=25000 
70 fudge=1.25 
80 PROCcode 
90 at*=0* 

100 : 

110 OK ERROR (?X=atX : PROCcache ( TRUE ) : PR 
INTREPORT$;- at line " ; ERL : END 
120 n=0 
130 sum=0 
140 REPEAT 

150 speed=?Krer.speed 
160 sum* = speed 
170 n*=l 
180 0V=-gl0.9- 

190 PRINT -Average = ";INT(sua/r.) ;"Hz 
This test = -;INT(speed);- Hz- 

200 e\=-f 10.3- 


Listing Biol 

10 REM >1 Runlmage {Biol) 

20 REX Biot file processor 

30 REM By Dave Acton & Dave Lawrence 
50 REM <c) BAD February 4 August 1993 
60 : 

280 PROCclosc_down 

330 DIM temp* 4100, ic* 64, mess* 4100, p 
ixtrans'V 4100, scale* 16 
370 type_def$="in/k,out=results/k,dire 
ctory=dir/s, send/s, window/s" 

541 PROCload_palettes 
600 IF Uib_flags*(i\) AND 40) >0 THEN 
611 IF (lib_flags*(i*) AND 32) >0 THEN 
q*!28=q*!28 OR (%1111111«24) 

841 xdragstartWNswi { -XDragASprite_St 
art-) 

842 save _proc*=-l 

1751 vind_out*=(<lX!16<>0) 

1890 lib..£:ags*(i*) = (files_.in* AND 1) 0 
R (dirs in* AND 2) OR (files_out* AND 4) 
OR (data_out* AND 8) OR (8end_ovtX AND 
16) OR (wind_out* AND 32) 

2200 ic*!12=FN8prite_vidth{lib_spr\{pro 
c*, icon*) ) 

2210 ic%! 16=PNsprite_height (lib_spr*(pr 
oc*, icon*) ) 

3921 IF (b* AND 2)>0 AND handie*<>-2 PR 
OCopen_spr_save {mousex*, mousey*, handle*) 

4421 WHEN 4S02:PROCint_help 

4422 WHEN 9:PR0Cpalette_change 

4530 =FNfind_elem<ic*!12,wind har.d*{)) 
OR FNf ind_elem(ic*! 12,result_hand*( ) ) 

4701 IF result_open*(proc*) PROCclose(r 
csult hand* ( proc* ) ) 

4702 I? save_proc*o-l PROCclose(save h 
and*) 

4741 makes, window** (lib_flags*{proc*) A 
KD 32) >0 

4861 claimedXsFALSB 

4871 IP claimed* PROCrelease.oenory 

4872 IP makes_window* THEN 

4873 IF spr_ba8e*<>0 THBN SYS "XOS. Spri 
tcOp-,4l3C,8pr_base%,0, 1 ELSE z=TRUE 

4874 ENDIF 

5029 window_title$=-Result- 

5030 PROCopen_8ave{x-64,y-64,lib_out 
*(proc*),proc*) 

5031 ENDIF 

5040 WHEN cakes_window*:?ROCopen_outpu 
t (proc*, spr .base* ) 

5111 vindow_title$="Result" 

5120 PROCopen_save(x-64,y-64,lib out*(c 
ur .proc* ), cur _proc*) 

5370 DBF ?ROCopen_save(x*,y*,type*,p*) 

1 04 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 


210 PRINT - Rounded = -;sum/n/ 100000 
0; ‘•Khz- 

220 UNTIL INXEY${0}<>— 

230 END 
240 : 

250 DEF PROCcachc(state) 

260 IF FNana3 THEN 
270 IF state THEN 
280 ‘Cache On 
290 ELSE 
300 ‘Cache Off 
310 ENDIF 
320 ENDIF 
I 330 ENDPROC 
340 : 

350 DBF FNam] 

360 SYS -XOS_SWlNumberFrornString-,"Cac 
he.Flush” TO ;f* 

370 =(f* AND 1)<>0 
380 : 

390 DEF PNmemspeed 
400 PROCcache (FALSE) 

410 PROCpausc{20) 

420 time=USR(timetrial) 

430 PROCpause{20) 

440 PROCcache {TRUE) 

I 450 =fudge*cycles/( (65535-time) /2S6) 

460 

I 470 DEF PROCpauseUX) 


5391 $8avetext=window titles 
5511 save_proc*=p* 

5541 IP xdragstart*o-l SYS "XDragASpri 
te.Stop" 

5581 IF (lib^flags*<save_procX) AND 32) 
>0 THEN 

5582 q*!40=4FP9 

5583 q*!36=spritesize*+20 

5584 ELSE 

| 5601 ENDIF 

6000 IF xdragstart*o-l AND (PNread,cmo 
| s{28) AND 2)>0 THEN SYS xdragstart*,*110 

00101,1, $(savetypetl),q*t8,g*»24 ELSE SY 
S -wimp DragBox", ,q* 

6110 PROCsave it 

6320 IP hand*=save_hand* SYS “XOS.Pile- 
, 6 , j unk$ : save_proc*= - 1 
6350 IF proc%>0 PR0Cclose2 
6401 IF (lib_flags*<prccX) AND 32) >0 PR 
OCredraw. output (hand*, proc*} : ENDPROC 
7450 : 

7460 DEF FNsprite_width(spr%) 

7470 LOCAL width*, mode* 

7480 SYS -03_Sprite0p-,4228,lib_sprites 
*,epr* TO , , , width*, , ,roode* 

7490 =width*<<FNvar(ncde*,4) 

7500 : 

7510 DEF FNsprite_height(spr*) 

7520 LOCAL height*, mode* 

7530 SYS -OS_SpritcOp", 4228, lib^sprites 
*, spr* TO , , , , height*, , mode* 

7540 =heigbt*<<FNvar(mode*, 5) 

7550 : 

7560 DBF FNvar (mode*,varX) 

7570 LOCAL v* 

7580 SYS -OS_ReadXodeVariable“,mode*,va 
r* TO ,,v* 

7590 =v* 

| 7600 : 

7610 DBF PROCint_help 
7620 messX!12=mfissX!8 
7630 cess*! 16=4503 

7640 help$=PNget_help_text (mess*! 32, mes 
&*! 36) 

I 7650 ${mess*t20)=LEFT${help$,232) 

7660 !aess*=(L8N fcelp$+25> ANI 1 NOT 3 
7670 SYS -Wirp_SendMessage'\ 17,mes8*,me 
88*! 4 

7680 ENDPROC 
7690 : 

7700 DEF FNget_help text (window*, icon*) 
7710 LOCAL helps, i* 

7720 CASE window* 0? 

7730 WHEN -2: 

7740 i*=FNf ind_elcn( icon*, proc icon*( ) 

> 


480 t*t=TIME : REPEAT : UNTIL TLM2>t* 
490 ENDPROC 
500 : 

510 DEF PROCcode 
520 tllow= 450 
530 tlhigh= 454 
540 tlgo= 458 
550 tllatch=45C 
560 codesize=256*1024 
570 DIM code codesize 
580 sp=13:link=14 :pc=15 
590 pass=8 

600 PX*code:LX=code*codesize 

610 [OPT pass 

620 

630 .timetrial 


640 

STMFD 

(sp) ! , {link ) 

650 

SKI 

-OS_SnterOS- 

660 

670 

MOV 

R0,#*00000<<8 

690 

MOV 

R1,#X11111«8 

690 

SKI 

“OS updateKEMC- 

700 

710 

SKI 

-OS_IntOff- 

720 

730 

xov 

R12, *43200000 

740 

750 

MOV 

R0,I4FF 

760 

STRB 

R0, [R12,itllow] 


7750 IF i*=0 THEN 

7760 fcelp$=-This is the BIO icon. The 
re are currently no BIO modules running" 
I 7770 ELSE 

| 7780 help$="This is the -♦lib^name$(i 

%)♦- icon. |M-+FNhelp(-l,-l,lib_proc$(i%) 
• ) 

| 7790 BNDIF 

7800 WHEN info hand*: 

7810 help$*-This window displays infor 
mat ion about BIO.“ 

7820 WHEN save_hand* 

7830 CASE icon* OF 

7840 WEEN -l:helpS=“This box allows y 
ou to save your edited file.“ 

7850 WHEN 0:help$="Click here to save 
the data with the current filename. If 
it is not a full pathname, you rwst drag 
the icon to a directory first. - 
7860 WHEN 1 :help$=-Drag this icon to 
the directory in which you want to save 
the file. Or, drag it to the program int 
o which you want to transfer the data.- 
7870 WHEN 2:help$='This shows the fil 
ename for this data. If it is not a full 
pathname, drag the icon into a director 
y display. - 
7880 ENDCASE 
7890 OTHERWISE 

7900 i*=FNfind elem(windov*,wind_hand*( 

I 11 

7910 IF i*>0 THEN 

7920 heip$=“?his is the “♦lib. nace$(i* 
)♦- set up vindow|M ,, 4FNhelp(windowX, icon 
X,lib proc$(i*)) 

7930 ELSE 

7940 i*=FNfind_elem{windcwX, result han 
d*{)) 

7950 help$="This is the output from "♦ 

| libjaame$(i*)+-|M-*FNhelp(l,-l,lib_proc$ 
i (i*)) 

7960 ENDIF 
7970 ENDCASE 
7960 =help$ 

7990 : 

8000 DEF FNhelp (window*, icon*, module?) 
8010 LOCAL h$ 

8020 LOCAL ERROR 

8030 ON ERROR LOCAL RESTORE ERROR: =— 
6040 h$=BVAL(-FN"+rodule$+-_belp (window 
1 *,icon*)-) 

8050 RESTORE ERROR 
8060 =h$ 

8070 ; 

8080 DEF FNhelp^on_icon (window*, icon*,h 
l$,h2$) 


770 STRB R0, [R12, Stlhigh) 

780 

790 STRB R0, [Rl2,#tlgo] 

800 ] 

810 FOR i*=l TO cycles 
820 [OPT pass 
830 ADD R0 , R0 , 1 

840 ] 

850 IF (i% MOD 100) =0 PRINTcycles-iX;C 
HRS 13; 

860 NEXT i* 

870 [OPT pass 


880 

890 

STRB 

R0, [R12,#tllatch] 

900 

LDRB 

R0, [R12,#tllov] 

910 

LDRB 

Rl, (R12,ltlhigh) 

920 

930 

ORR 

Rll,R0,Rl,lsH*8 

940 

MOV 

R0 ( *X111O1«8 

950 

MOV 

Rl, #\11111«8 

960 

970 

SKI 

-OS.UpcateMEMC- 

980 

TEQP 

pc,*0 

990 

1000 

MOV 

R0,R0 

1010 

XOV 

R0,R11 

1020 
1030 ) 

LDMFD 

{ Sp ) ! , { pC )' 

1040 ENDPROC 



BIO (page 93) 

8090 IF FNbctton^state (window*, icon*) =0 
THEN =hi$ ELSE =h2S 
8100 : 

8110 DEF FNsvi(swiS) 

8120 LOCAL swi*, ok* 

8130 SYS -XOS_SWINumberFrcmString-,,swi 
$ TO swi*;ck* 

8140 IF (ok* AND 1)>0 swi*=-l 
8150 =swi* 

8160 : 

8170 DEF FNread cmos(byteX) 

8180 SYS “0S_3yte", 161, byte* TO ,,byte* 
8190 =byte* 

8200 : 

8210 DEF PROCclosc down 
8220 IF runr.ingX>0 THEN 
8230 FOR i*=l TO running* 

8240 proc%=ruaningX{iX) 

62S0 IF result. openX(procX) PROCclose( 
resu lt^hand* (proc*) ) 

8260 NEXT 
8270 ENDIF 

8260 SYS -Wimp_CloseDown“ 

8250 ENDPROC 
8300 : 

8310 DBF PROCload palettes 
8320 SYS -OS..File\ 5, -<Bio$Dir>. Palette 
s“ TO , , , ,plen* 

8330 DIM palettes* plen*+16 
8340 !palettes*=plen*+16 
8350 palettes*! 8=16 

8360 SYS -XOS_SpriteOp", 4 109, palettes* 
8370 SYS “XOS.SpriteOp", 4 10A, palettes*, 
-<Bio$Dir>. Palettes" 

8380 ENDPROC 
8390 : 

8400 DEF PROCopen. spr save (x*,yX, handle 

*> 

8410 LOCAL proc* 

6420 proc*=FNfind cle*(handleX, result h 
and%()) 

8430 IF procXoO THEN 
8440 IF (lib flags* (proc*) AND 32)>0 PR 
OCoper. .save (»ousex*-64 , mouseyX-64 , 4FF9 , p 
roc*) 

8450 ENDIF 
8460 ENDPROC 
8470 : 

8480 DEF ?ROCpaictte_change 
8490 LOCAL i*,proc* 

8500 FOR i*=l TO running* 

8510 proc*=running*(i%) 

8520 IF result_open*(proc%) AND (lib_fl 
agsX(procX) AND 32) >0 PROCforce redraw{r 
esult hand*(proc*> ) 

8530 NEXT 


PROGRAMS 


m® SNDPRQC 
6550 : 

8560 DEF PRCC force. Tedrav{hsr.d%] 

8570 SYS '■Wirnp_ FOr^eE^&ra:W' v i , -1E9 r 

-1EB F 1E8,138 
858® ENDFROC 
8593 : 

85^0 DEF FKcrMte^ window faode^, urea * , yr 

} 

3610 IF xres%<0 xrea^-xres^ ELSE xres% 
=xres%> >FKvar >| o?deH, 4 ] 

862® IF yresV® yrefi^-yreaft SLS3 yres* 
=yratf%>>lFMvarfj&ode%, 5) 

56 10 sprjba S6%= FHnflfcg_a_ sprit e ( nanueS , xr 
ea%, yrea%,ned&V 
8640 IF spr baee%=0 THEN 
8 65® ?R0Cwa” rf i4ot enough RMA to create 
window* 1 } 

366® ELSE 

667® SYS "X03_$prkeOp' r ,3 ! 13C,Gpr base%, 
cittneS 

8630 window ,tiele$=nase$ 

6590 EHDIF 
3700 =apr_base% 

8710 : 

872® DEF FNrcake a .sprite I'spraS, sprx%, ap 
ry%, gpjnrt^J 

6730 IF £prE&=3 OR $prrft=6 OR epEB&=7 T 
HEN 

3710 pal e%=.FK r ^r { epnift, 3 } + 1 
3750 Log2bpp1fi=FKyar > spirr*.,, 40 ) 

376® spr i tesi t&%= spryV ( [ ■; sprxV <i-gg2 bp 
pM+3I)ANDKOT31) D1V 8444+pala^0 
877® Si'S "JtOS.KodnlG-'re^.fipritesiae^S 
® TO , , rmaVok 
673® IF }ok AND 1)>0 THEE? =0 
679® Jma'^apritesize^® 

835® rr.a^E3slf 

6813 SYS "XOS_Sprite0p'V6l09,rrak 
8320 SYS ■ r xos_SpriteCxi J, rSlflF,n'-a%,3prn5 
, lj eprx!*,,. spry^ r sprta% 

883® FROCcopyjaletec (palctteB% r STRSpal 
&%, rsa%,. spra$ !■ 

8840 3rpa c « 

6853 : 

3360 HE? PROCCOpy ^palette [base I^pEprl J, 
base2\spr2S) 

8870 LOCAL k,aXb% F c% 

366® SYS feias, baa#i%i.spr 

1S,-1 TO tri cX t h% 

869® SYS "XG5 .Sprite0p ,r ,&125 a ba3e2% F spr 
26,-1 10 (J( ^ 

6983 FOR && TO cV 8-1 STEF 4 
6910 a%!i«t=b%!i% 

6920 NEXT 
833® bndpkoc 
8943 ; 

6950 DEF PRCCdegktop_palette 
3960 LOCAL i^palefc 

8 97 ® SYS JJ OS„SpriteOp'- , £ 1 2 8 f spr. base's, w 
iftdo«_,title£ TO ,jmu ap-nifa 
833® pa I .s%=FNVar [ spraft, 1 ) ~ 1 
839® IF paisas- 4 OR pals%=16 PRCCcopyjoa 
let te } pal e tees’* r STRfpe 1 &V "wT , apr _baae%, 
"Output 31 ) 

9030 ENDPRCC 
901® i 

9 ®20 33 F FEOCourreat_.paIette 
9®3® local entries^, paletted 
934® SYS ^XOS^ SpriteOp", £125, spr base%, 
wiridcw_title$,-I “0 ,, ,entries%, paletted 
9050 IF entriesV>64 THEN 
9360 FOE i%=® TO entrie6=*-L 
907® SYS ^jteadPalette^i^ii’S TO F ,p 
alette^ (iV8} 

90R3 mm i% 

5090 EHDJF 
9100 ENDEROC 
9U® : 

912® D3F TEOCvdul 9 { c%, r'k, g%, b^3 
913® LOCAL entries^, paletted 
9 143 'S VS *XOS_Spd teQp" ,6125, ispr _base^ 
wiadjQw^titleS^-l TO , „ ,ar.zri a e%, paletted 
9153 IF c*.< entries^ paletted [cV8k;6 
OR fr*«8> OR '(g%«»6} OR (bV<24) 

5160 ENDF ECO 
9170 : 

9180 DEF PROCsaveJt 

9190 IF (lib,f lags** (save. proeV) ft>ID 32) 


<>& THEN 

9200 SYS "XOS_ SpriteOp", &10C, regal t. ope 
a%[gavg proc 3 *!' , saves 
9210 ELSE 

5220 SYS "OS .FSCoatrBi", 36, junlt6, save 6 r 
£92 

9233 ElfDIF 
9243 ENIiPEOC 
5250 : 

9260 DE? PR0CclO3«2 

9270 IF {lib_£iaff^(p*^S} AMD 32} >0 AN 
D rea\3lt_op’Sn^[pro^}o3 TMEH 
929® SYS "bsjfodule'^f:, result open^fpr 

3250 IF EavG_proc7&o-t THEM 
9330 !q^=save_};and!^ 

931® SYS "Wiisp CloaftWindcw' 1 , r (fr 
932® save^prcc^=-l 
933® EHDIF 
9340 ENDIF 

935® rc suit epea^t [proc'^J = FALSE 
9363 EMP? ROC- 
53 70 ; 

5 360 DEF PROCredfilpp'iJtpiit f band 3 *, pUJC^) 
935® LOCAL i%, uon%, ax6%, ay0^ 

9400 SYS *‘XOS..SpriC'eOp A ', S 128 r result ope 
aH(prOC^} F windaw_title^ TO , , , , apryTi, F n» 
deH 

94 13 xe ig^ - PNvar (x.ode^, 4 } 

6423 yeig^FMvar [adders j 
5430 SYS "C'3lourTraas_EeleetTafcle , %re,‘ie 
It. .opeoTs ■' proc % ) , window t itle 6 r - 1 r - 1 F pixt 

rafls^j ^00 

9440 !irale^=lc<xeig^ 

943® 3 cal e% ! 4 = 1< tye ig-* 

Mf® scaleVJ a=l< cFMvar | HODE F 4 ) 

947® scaled! 12=1 t^FMvar [NODE, 5) 

9483 SYS " K i _ Re a ra wW i. r, ds w v , ,, ^;: ?® Ttor 

9490 ax0^-q^!4-q%£20 

95®® ayfttsQft! l6-g^!24 - fspr^^yeig^) 

9510 WHILE more* 

952® SYS "XOS..SpriteOp n ',Sl34 J result; r „ope 
n\ (ppac% ; , wi adow_t 1 1 le$ , t ay®^, ®., sc a 1 

e^rpixerans* 

9530 8YS ' r WIiup_0et Rectangle'', r g^ TO ssr 
e% 

9540 EKDWHILE 
9550 EHDFRCC 
956® : 

957® OEF PEOOopen, cutputipr&c^, sbaee%) 
958® 6reault_title^.[ proc% } =wlr.dow_t itle 

6 

9 59® SYS "XD& Spr i t«0p rf , & 128 , abased, win 
dgw. titieS TO , r , sprx%, gpry%, , jnede^ 

9 60 S FKva i (uace^, 4 ! 

9613 apry%= spry^sc < FJivar (cado^, 5 ) 

9623 !q^=0 
363® q%]4=-6pry^ 

964® £^l8=sprx^ 

965® g^&S 12=0 

9650 SYS "WiTOp.,.SetBttefltY,r66\ t lt_bani^( 
proc^] r qt; 

9673 3g^=reeiilt_b5nd^(prgC^? 

5660 SYS r '‘Wimp_GetWiadowState- u J , q^. 

9660 g%3l2=q^34+sprx^ 

9730 t^!8=^J16-spry^ 

9710 q*?28=-l 

9720 SYS 11 Wiirip_OpenKindtitf*'j , q% 

973® co sol t_ppesi% ( proc^) ■= sbase ■•= 

9740 ENDPROC 
973® : 

976® drf PNcla im.aie^ary ( RETURN ptrt, RE? 
CRN amOLint\J 
977® LOCAL dsbA 

9783 SYS ■'Wir.jj SlotSize" , - 1 , - 1 TO win®_ 

ciirreat^, , 

9760 SYS -"wimp .SlotSize",wiPp_Gurren-t^+ 
srer.%, -1 TO r.-em* 

9800 ptr^=HIKEM 
981® ajMuntVaenft-pt]^ 

9 62® clai^ed%= [ a=ou nt*< >® j 
963® = claimed^ 

9840 ; 

9653 OEF PRCCreleageiwenory 

5850 SYS ,v Witnp SlotSiae' , 1 .wir,p_current < i ( 

-1 

9873 claimedfeFALSE 
9683 BNTPROC 


Listing Bjq2 

1® RiFI &Faldat {BiD2 : 

20 RBH 6y dL £ DA 
3® REK Fpr 32 -bit Jtactiiaes 
40 REH [c f- SAO August 1993 
50 : 

60 DIM £4000 
| 7® REPEAT 

I 80 READ file? 

I 90 IP fiie$ *>“ENir then 

100 FRiWPfileS 
110 SEAL type^ 

12® p%=<3$ 

13® dat6=’ u " 

14® WHILE datSo^EKD*' 

153 7p^=FNread,,byte 

163 p^+=l 

170 IF dats="* READ dat$ 

183 ENEWHrLE 

1 9® SYS "OS Fi le* , 10, i i i$S | type^ . , (ft 

f p% 

20® EI3DIF 

21® UNTIL £ i LeS =- JI END" 

220 END 
230 : 

240 DEF FNread_byte 
25® LOCAL c^n4,a% 

25® c6=FNread_cbar 
270 IF eS= J, z ,r THEM ^® 

283 IF c$< J, a J ' THEM =EVAI.("£v+c6+FWread 
. ebar) 

290 n^=ASC(c$j-95 
3®0 a -i= FKr-ead .by te 

310 dat&=STSlKGS is%, RigjITS. ("3 " +ST^a% 
,2>)4datS 
32® =FNre&d. byte 
330 : 

34® D3f PWreatLcfcaT 
I 3S® LOCAL PS 

360 IF datS= ,r " READ dat$ 

I 370 g|=LETr6}datS,l} 

360 dat$=MID$ (dat6,7) 

35® =cS 
' 400 : 

41® DATA Palettea J £F?6 
423 DATA 06fczl®bt8®®4at40bz32et£z3Cb 
433 DATA s3Cbzl9bzl®bzl3bzl0b(FFl0bFF 
440 DATA oz60bs34azbz01bz4cb^lCbzlAb 
453 DATA zlBbzl®bzieF?atl®FFa2,10ar?z 
46® DATA 13aF Fz 13bFF IDbFFcz E0bz 3 13 6 a 
470 DATA 3az03b2AObsACb&l0bzl0bzl0bz 
460 DATA I0FPazl0FPazI0zFPzI0zFF5l®a 
490 DATA FF 2 10a? FZ 10dz FF130 2 PFISFFzF? 
500 DATA 13RFzFF10zaFF10zaFFl0bFF13b 
51® DATA FFllbzl2bFF.liF?azl2zaFFllzFF 
52® DATA Z12FFZFF 1 LaFFz 1 2^2 FR 1 las FF 1 2 
530 DATA aFFzl iFFzFFl 2% FFz 1 IzaFFITFF 
543 DATA azilbFF12Ez30®2az36343zaz®7 
550 DATA bzl 032 az2C®2 az lObz l®bz 10P2 10 
560 DATA blllcblll 0b22 10b2 21®b3 3 10b 3 3 
57® DATA 104 4azl34 4azl355a 1 1 105 5al 110 
590 DATA 64 a22 1® 6 6a2 2 107 7a3 3 1®77 *3 3 1®' 
59® OATA aE441®az441®all5510allS5l0a 
60® DATA 22 66 10a3 266 10a 367710a 33 77 10 
Si® DATA 4 4 z4 4 L®4 4z 4 4 1 055 1 15 5 105 51155 
620 DATA 1066226 6 106 62 2 65 107 7 33 7 7 1077 
630 DATA 33771088azl088azl099alll095 
540 DATA a? LlOAAe 12 13AAa2 2 10BBa3 310BS 
650 DATA a3310CCazl0CCazl®DDaU13ODa 
660 DATA 1 1 IDE SO 2 2 10EEa 22 10? ?a 3 3 10 F F 
670 DATA 3331068 z4 4 138 8 z4 4 1098 11 5513 
660 DATA 9911 5 5 13AA226 6 10AA2 266 10»S 33 
660 DATA 77 10BE3 37 7 10CCz44 l®COz 44 10DO 
730 DATA 11S510DD115510SS226610E32266 
710 DATA L0?F3 377 13FF3377 10z44zl0z44 
72® DATA zl®I1551II01I551‘l 102266221® 

733 DATA 226622l0337733l0337733l0a44 
740 DATA zl®a44sl3a5 51110a 551 Ll®a6||| 
750 DATA l®a6 622 10a773 3 L0a77 3 3 l®za4 4 
760 DATA 102144 10ila55i0lia55i02£afi6 
770 DATA 102 2a6 61033a" 7 1®33 a 77 10b4 41® 
780 DATA b4 4 10b5 5 l®b55 10b66 10b6 6 l®hV 7 
75® DATA 10b77 1® 88 4 4 2108 8 44 z 109955 1 1 
8®0 LATA 109 955 1 L13AA6 62 2 10AA6 622 !03& 

1 El® DATA 77331 0BB7733 10CC4 4 z 10CC4 4 z 1® 

, 620 LATA DD55111 0DD5 5 1T10EB 6 62 210E E 6 6 

63® DATA 22 13FR77 3 3 L®FF7 73 3 108 6a4 4 1® 

84® DATA 88 a4 4 109 9a5 5 309 9a 5 5 l®AAa 6613 


853 DATA AAa66l0Eaa77I03Ba77L0CCa44 1® 
860 DATA Ct’a4 4 IBDDa 55 10DDa5 5 l®EEa66l® 
870 DATA EEa66Z0?Fa77L®FFa77czfl0bz31 
880 DATA 3677 ezz®3 bzACbzACbe 1 BczbF&z 
890 DATA bF0zbOSzbD3zbB0ifcE3zb90rb90 
9®'3 DATA Z370tb70zb50zb50sb302bl0iz4® 
91® DATA 9®az4®90za3®azaE0bzC0fczC®az 
920 DATA D0bzC3bzaE0B0saE0BBz5080az50 
910 DATA 8®az F0S0az F0B0LZ &3F®az EV3FE® 1 
94® DATA bz3®bz 3477 eza z0.1ba4Cbs 4Cbz 1 A 
953 DATA b3iBbzI0czb5®zb50zbC03bC0L® 
960 DATA bFFlDbFFCZ 
970 DATA END 
I 96® DATA END 

1 Listing Bio3 

1® REM >3Cdat (Dio 3 ) 

2® REM By dL 4 DA 
33 REM For 32 -bit ina shines 
\ 43 P.EH (c) DAU Auguet 1993 

1 5@ : 

| 60 DIM tfr £400® 

I 70 REPEAT 

8® READ file? 

9® IF fileSoTSHD" THEN 
100 PRIKTfile^ 

210 READ type^ 

130 pVd^ 

| 130 daCS^" 

| 14® WHILE datSo^EHD" 

15® 7p%T?7}reacl_byte 
16® p^f=l 

170 IF dat^±" JI READ datS 
130 EHDWHILB' 

190 SYS ^OS.Pile 17 , 1®, file?, type«v*a* 

I 

i 2®0 EHMF 

210 CNTIL file$="EKD ,r 
| 220 END 

330 : 

I 240 DEF ?Nread_byte 

i 250 LOCAL c$ F n%, a% 

36® c^FNread_cbar 
270 IF eS="2" THEN =0 
28® I? c$< rf a" TM8M =EYAL { “& M tc^tFMread 
_char} 

29® d%=ASC(c5)-95 
3®3 a^^?Nrefid..byto 

3 10 dat$ =STR l NGf (n%; R! GHT^ { "0" ^STR !“■&% 

, 2) j +datS 
320 ^FNrcad. byte 
| 330 : 

340 DEF FMread_cbar 
350 LOCAL 05 

360 IF dats* 3 "’’ READ dacS 
37® c$=L3FT$(£at8,l) 

130 dat$=MlD9[dat^ 3) 

39® =Q$ 

4 0® : 

410 DATA iDEprites, &FF9 
420 DATA 0lbz 10bz04 ®5az F4 04az 3 364 6772 
43® DATA 6I7&6634c2®&b3!0£z0?bz2Cbz90 
44® DATA B2AZ0CSZfiZe2£ZBZS2SZBZbz2£02 
450 DATA Szgza22bz20a2202bza23023z65 
46® DATA 67 6 5 55 4 55 5 4 5022 2a 5 4a 55 6 56 6 56 
470 DATA gz4 265 4554 564634332 la®242a33 
480 DATA 64664455562 4nz5 2 55 4 55-5 664544 
493 DATA 3344a222®22444344 5466455455 
503 DATA 25is3 244 5 455 453 413 2la33b222 3 
513 DATA 1 3 322 3 13 4 2a5 54 5 44 2 4 j z323 4al 3 
523 DATA 53653533h22a32545535b3323gz 
530 DATA 2 2 a 3 3 322 3b2 2 4 3 a 34 a 33 2 32 2 23 3 2 
1 5-30 DATA b3 1 4 4 1 1 b22 all all 02dz 2 2a32a3 1 

550 DATA 2 2 2 3 r 22 2 3L3 3 3 2 22 bz 2 02 1 1 la 1 2 
56® DATA £22211222 21:222al 222 2 1D2232 
57® DATA L2212b2LazEzazazEzaz&zdza?F 
58® DATA esmzaFF ez" zaFFa zns a FFOZFEBF 
59® DATA ozaF?izaFFbzF0aFF0FbzaFF0Ph 
60® DATA zaFFhzOFFhzaFFfzaFFfzaFFeza 
610 DATA FFaFFezaFFdz eFFcFFdz a FFC ZflFF 
620 DATA eFFczaFFase FFhFFOFezaFFz bF? 

610 DATA kF Fza FFFBa FFkFFZ a ? Fa zifiz aFFa 
640 DATA zasaFFSZffiZaFF 
65® DATA END 
660 

670 DATA END 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 105 


PROGRAMS 


Listing Bio4 

"-fueo^dgraphS 

500 DATA 2 522044 2343 26dz207 503az7205 

470 BEO es_etroon(p 

720 ENDCASE 

510 DATA 1067 106 642234 32 3dz 33 6 1 D5 1 10 

480 LDMFD (flp] ! , [r2 , FLl, pu} 

10 R 3H >3dgriiph (Biri) 

30 REH By dL k DA 

3a REM For 32-bit machines 

732 -helps 

520 DATA 76 355325611E02at03cz4 1456417 
530 DATA z 3 037,1 173247 3 13fz 1014 4 534 37 
540 DATA zT 105x7116 6 11 5az 22 c z 62 14 z 4 1 

490 

500 r ag_coayert 

510 etkfd Cap] {rl ,R2 X link} 

4a REM (cj ii.MJ August 1953 

Listing Bio 5 

550 DATA 57 127 5 454 4 34a 11 5 14 5 33 2 Is zgi 

| 520 HO V R1,R0 

5a : 

10 REM itiexfielp (Eiq5) 

560 DATA hFFczbPFc zhFFczbFPc zhPFczhFF 

530 MOV R0,S20 

60 DEF FH3dgraph najM="3D Graph plott 

20 RZH Example of interactive help 

570 DATA CZhEFCibFFCZhFFO zbFFe zhFRca 

540 swi "XOS_ReadDn signed" 

er" 

30 EEK add these lines ibut not these 

560 DATA bFFcxhFFc rbFFczhPFczbFFc zhFF 

| 550 NOV R0,R2 

70 : 

jtBHS : ! 

590 DATA czfcF?^z?F07zh??hzFF0FazC PRz 

560 LDMFD (jpH, [ rl , R2 , pc } 

80 DEF FN3dgzaph_argE'::"-iu text -wind 

40 RFH to the KexDump module from Apr 

' 600 DATA F0fFFazF0FF0FazFF0FF0FF?0gFF 

| 570 j 

ow" 

l 11 

* 610 DATA azaFFOFz F0ef F0Faz&FbF Fzc FFz 

580 NEXT 

90 : 

940 ; 

620 DATA P0ePF=rbFFF0tF?zFP0PzeF?ez?F 

1 590 -0 

1 D 0 DEF FM3dgrSpfi_lnit 

950 HRF FAT)eKdunip_helpfwindc™^,iC 0 n^) 

! 630 DATA zdFPziFFzhFFpzbPF 

600 ; 

110 =0 

960 LOCAL helpS 

' 640 DATA END 

610 DEF FNeprltasort^BBUseiiBxIs^ny^jEb^ 

120 : 

970 IF tfind 0 VA=- 1 TEEN 

650 

fEh^jini^} 

130 DEF FN3dgraph£inS) 

960 helpS="Drop any file on this for 

660 DATA "SprSort, iFEC 

620 IF \zi>% AiiD 1) AMD FMhutton..state ( 

140 LOCAL arbjSrX^y^sVzprilB, in;taEli, a 

' a hex dump." 

570 DATA ■cFFfcz2Cbz2 201 a z01br5 3707269 

mhV r Bi^} =0 PROCaet. buttoniBh^jiai^, l| 

i3e,KB H zi, j 

| 990 ELSE 

6 E 0 DATA 74 65 5 35 P7 2 74 0D7 1ceDA 31 a r4 001 

630 =0 

150 I F FNcreat e„w ifldow ( 30, 12 63> -512, "Gr 

:023 CASE itm\ OF 

690 DATA az9C03azAC0tizc?PI2z03870702 

640 : 

aph JJ I/=0 THEN =TRUE 

1010 WHEN 2 ; he lp$=“En!:e r hex dump wid 

700 DATA 070103010CezFCaFPz05ez3Dez30 

650 DEF FNGprzteaortCia$,out$? 

160 IF nfclaiiti_mieiTjOEy( table., size 3=0 PR 

' th here" 

710 DATA ai0Ibz01bz536F7 274-0D7 4 6 Cfi 5 64 

660 LOCAL in^tj outV, sprites^, nextA., last 

OCwarai" 0 iit of memory"? s=.TRU 2 

1 1020 WHEN 3:helpS= w Clich SELECT to se 

720 DATA 3E0D6504 bz03bzCChFF BSbzFt^bFF 

i X, of E%, menoryiSx length^ 

170 in=OPBWm(in$) 

1 t output format to r by tea"' 

730 DATA 13B30117D6hzCEbz0Cbr06hz9Cb 

670 LOCAL available%HP03te%, spaced, gert 

160 f kinc_3dgraph3 =QST-S« is 

1030 W5EN" 4 ; help* = -Click SELECT || se 

740 DATA FFBSbzCChF? 13330117 F 0 b 2 FBhz 

, aort^, ix, B izeX, type^, 

190 CLOSE# in 

t output format to J worde J - 

750 DATA 0CbzD6bz 6 CbFFB 8 bz 9CbFF 1 3B3 81 

680 sor t4i=FNes^_ star e ( wind_hacd%, 1 ] 

200 Zplus=30 

1040 WHEN 5; help? = "Click SELECT to "t 

760 DATA 170A0lflZl00iaz0CbzB3hJCCbFF 

690 IF NOT FHclair^aemorytmemoryS.avai 

210 3.2002 

FNheIp..on_icon(wi Ddowk, icon*, "in;"', '’ex" \ *■ 

770 DATA 6 60 la zFChFP l@a zC7 4 15 34 3a4 90D 

lablelsl PR0Cwarn<"0ut of nernoiy 1 "} : =2 

210 <l= table 

"elude ASCII text"’ 

7E0 DATA 6C65 643 B0D7F4 1 53 4 3a4 500537 2 

703 in^=OPBhIN-;itil3 

210 xa=$A 

1050 n":sj; 7: helps = "Enter length of du 

790 DATA 6i6469a6Fa662C726l6469e6F5E 

| 710 iprites^PNwgetiinVi 

240 zs-0.4 

tup block here" 

800 DATA 0D4 E7 56 0657269 630D53726 16469 

7 20 next^-FNwget { in.V j - i 

210 FOR 2=10 TO -10 STEP -ZS 

1060 ENDCASE 

810 DATA a6Fa662C?2 6 16 4 69a6F6E0D496 3 

730 last^tFMwgat [in%7 

260 } = a 

1070 EtfDIF 

820 DATA 6F6E J 730DS3 7261 64 6 9a6Fa6 62C72 

740 Bit etigpri tea^* U 64 4 j 

170 PEOChourglass <10- z , 401 
232 FOR x=-I0 TC 23 STEP xa 

10S0 =help$ 

630 DATA 61646Sa6F6E0O 
640 DATA END 

750 IF atze^?available% FRGCwarnf'Out 
of Ejemory") : =1 

290 i a=FM3dg;r«iph_eva 1 f fuuc_3dgreph$ , 

Listing Bio6 

30 REN >3ortdat {flio 6 ) 

20 REN sy dL A DA 

550 

760 poke^ssersry^ 

x,i)-3 
3 30 a* =5 

310 NEXT 

960 DATA END 

,i 770 FOR i%=0 TO sprite b%-1 

^ 760 FTRHin%=next^ 

7 90 of £%-FNVget r in^,) 

320 1=4-1 

30 REH For 32 -bit r.aobinefi 

Listing Bio7 

80S SYS "OS_GBFB" J 4,inVpoke%,i2 

330 NEXT 

42 ESN <c) SAD August 1993 

10 FEN >SpriteSort ? 

E10 poke’s! 12=next^ 

340 b= table 

52 : 

20 RBM By dL 

820 pokeV-16 

350 FOR lid® TO 23 - 10 STEP -Zfi 

60 DEN q4 44020 

30 REM For 32-blt machines 

830 xext^+=of£’e l 

360 FROCbourglasB ( 30- z , 40 3 

70 REPEAT 

40 REM <C) BAD August 1993 

840 NEXT IX 

370 a=b 

60 READ fileS 

| 50 S 

650 IF sorbk»0 type^34 ELSE typekiapri 

360 FOR x=-l0 TO 10- *S STEP xa 

90 I? (ile5«-SSS* THEM 

1 60 DBF PNeFtiheaort.name = "Sprite so 

tesort^code^. 

390 GCOL 2 

100 Mus 

rter- 

660 SfS "OSJeepSort'", BpriteBb, poke’t 0 

4 03- PR0C3dgr.aph jpl pM 4 , x, 1 a , z } 

130 READ type* 

| 70 DEF FNspdtefiofrt^arge = "-im Sprit 

a (Hll«30) , type^ . , cie=ory^ r *6 

4 13 P:lOC3dgraph ..plot i. 4 , x *xs , i ( a* 5 ) r e 

120 p*±q[* 

e -out Sprite" 

670 0ut^=OFBN0UT(0utS) 

) 

130 datSs"" 

80 : 

800 PROCirfput (outV, sprites'*] 

420 PRjQC3(Sgraph._plot{8& f Xj l<a£j) :l z-z 

140 WHILE datSt>||fij$ 

90 DE? FNspritesort 

890 PROCwpur < out^ r & 10 1 

B) 

150 7pV?Nifead..byte 

100 LOCAL iX 

900 ?ROOfl)nt(out^ r laetV) 

430 PKOC3dgreph._picit<85,x+XB, J fa+j*5 

162 pfltfii 

110 FOR i^=0 TO 1 

910 fipacek=remc ry^tava i 1 abl a^s-poke^ 

},z-za> 

170 IF datS="" READ datS 

120 FROCset .but ton (wind ,hand%, i %, ADD I 

920 FOR TO spritcsVl 

440 GCOL 1 

im ekdwhile 

i*= 0 )) 

333 PROChcurgl ass[i%,aprite 3 ^} 

450 PR0c3dgr.iph.,plcS£ 5,x, j (a* JJ , z-as 

190 EVE "QE_Flle h , 10 , fileS, type^,^ 

130 NEXT 

9 40 PTE# : n^isenrorn t £ i^‘ l 6*12} 

) 


HD DIM spriteaor(._oode% 256 

950 lengths FNwger <i,n%>-4 

4 60 PROC3dgraph_pl Ot [ 5, X t l fi , Z J 

200 SND'IF 

150 sp=13:linJci24:pc=15 

960 PROcwput ( out*-, leagt h^tt4 j 

4 70 PR0C3dgraph_plot [ 5 , x+xs . i a- 5 ) , z 

220 UNTIL £ileS= w £ND" 

150 FOR i^-0 TO 2 STEF 2 

970 REPEAT 

) 

220 END , 

170 p^=GpritegOrt_ccde^ 

980 I? length^) ap^ce^i gett-space^. BL 

4 60 PROC 3d-graph_plot < 5 , x^xs , ! la t jtS ] 

230 5 

1S0 [OPT i% 

£H get\rlength^ 

H z~z&S 

242 DEF FNread hyte 

190 ETHFD (ep) ! , (r0 ^RLIinb) 

990 8 YS -OS_GB5B" , 4, in%,poxeV. get% 

490 a+-5 

250 LOCAL 

200 EL as. convert 

1020 SYS "OS_GBPB" r 2,OUtk J pe'ko4i r get^ 

500 NEXT 

260 cS=FNread char 

210 BVS ss_one„B 

1010 length^- -get\ 

510 1)4 = 3 

270 IF TEEN ^0 

220 MOV EiliM 

1020 OliTIL length\.0 

520 SEAT 

230 If cSs-a" THEN =BVAbr&*+i;$+FNresd 

230 LDR R0, [sp r <4 ] 

1030 NEXT i% 

530 -0 | 

_ehar] 

240 BL ee, Convert 

1040 CLOSE ?ir.t 

540 : 

290 ft^ASC<cS)-95 

250 EVE return_LT 

1050 CLOSE *out% 

550 DBF FROC3dgraph plot<p,x,y f zl 

300 a^-FNreidJbyte 

260 CKP R1,R0 

1060 -0 

560 PLOT p,640ta*(x/(z+zpluB) 3;,l00*s*< 

3 10 dat s tSTSI NGS < nV T EIGHTS i "0 w +STRS 

270 LDMFD (Sp}!,[r0 

1070 * 

y/iz+zpluaj 3 

. 2 ?>+datS 

260 

10£0 DSF FNepriteeort_help£ window^, icon 

570 ENDPROC 

320 =FNreid_ byte 

290 return LT 

%) 

540 t 

230 : 

300 CM? pc,Jl&7F'0 C00C0 

1090 LOCAL help? 

550 DBF FN3dsrapb„eval<f$,x,z) 

340 DEF PNreed_char 

310 LfflFD (ep)g,(r0 ,Rl,pcl 

1100 IF vindowWl TNEN 

600 LOCAL y 

350 LOCAL cS 

330 

1110 helps -"Drop a sprite file on, this 

410 LOCAL ERROR 

360 IF dafS^"" READ datS 

330 ' return GE 

to sort its sprites" 

620 ON ERROR LOCAL RESTORE ERROR; =0 

370 cS= LEFTS (datS,l? 

340 CMP pc , 40 

1120 ELSE 

630 y=EYAL<f$) 

360 datS=KIDS(datS,2] 

350 LDMFD (ap)Mr0 ,M,pci 

1130 CASS icon% OF 

540 RESTORE ERROR 

390 =c? ( 

360 

1140 WHEN 0 ; he Lp$= "Click SELECT to so 

650 =y 

400 : 

370 .sfi_one.£ 

rt alphehet i ce lly f M 0 , 1 , 20 , 11 , 2 , 20 , 3 , . , .A 

660 : 

410 DATA SrtSpriteajffcFFS 

380 LDR R0,[sp,«4] 

,b h c 

670 DEF FN3dgraph_heip(viitdow%,iconft) ^ 

420 DATA 01 bz !0bzE402 a zD402az 7 3 707 259 

390 BL ss convert 

1150 WHEN IsheloS^Uck SELECT to go 

660 LOCAL help£ 

430 DATA 74 6 5736 F7 274 3 4s.04hzl0f Z07bz | 

400 BVC return_CE 

r t numeric a lly \ m0, 1 , 2 , 3 , 10 , 11 r 2 0, . . . A, fl. 

690 CASE vindoiA OF 

440 DATA 2Cbz6001az0Cfzh77jz7799aFF0F 

410 LDR R2j [sp, £ 0 ] 

C“ 

700 WHEN -l:help£="Dr&p a text file d 

450 DATA hj77 j z77?F3FFF^507 707 7 7 j z77 

420 LDR R3, [sp,*4] 

1160 ENDCASE 

escribing a graph ox this icon. The firs 

460 DATA BP3B0Bz7571z77js77PFBE0Ez27 

430 .fig. gtrcomp 

1170 ENDIF 

C lino should he a function of the form 
y=flx J 2 l for - 10 <=x< = i- 10 j - 10 <=i<B+ 10 n ‘ 
710 wren l:help$=*It is a graph of y- 

470 DATA 07 z77 Jz7 7AAEE0 Ee! 30 3 j 77 j e? 7 
480 DATA aAAazB70Bz77ja77AA0Aaz7B0BZ 
490 DATA 77jzh77szxll01fx620lax623742 

440 LORE SS, [S3] j#l 

450 LDRB R1,|R3JJ1 

460 CNF R0,Rl 

1160 ihelpS 


106 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 



Extremely Flexible. Keep track of your appointments. 
Add Individual, meaningful icons. Repeating Events c 
be set up with ease. 


What the magazines say... 

Archimedes World 

...Almanac is a prime example of a good 
idea made better through a lot of thought 
and quality workmanship ... Its power and 
flexibility means that it makes other 
packages completely redundant ... puts 
everything of a similar ilk well in the shade 
... Almanac is a winner - it has many 
features, all of which are easy to use. 


Records the Sending and Receiving of ANY type of 
correspondence. Almanac allows instant ’mouse click 1 
recall of the letter, Impression Document, Fax etc... 
FROM WITHIN ALMANAC. 


Corves pent 
dehce 


Address of companies with lots of room for notes, 
telephone numbers (including Fax, Mobile etc*..). 
Extensive search facilities are available (Name, 
County. .^Correspondence, Staff Details, Diary Events 
and Anniversaries can AUTOMATICALLY be linked 
(and Accessed) from the address book page. 

Record address-type details of individuals. As with the 
Company address book, AUTOMATIC linking to relal 
Correspondence and Events is easily achieved. Individ 
members of staff of a company/organisation may be 
recorded here and linked, AUTOMATICALLY, to the 
Company address book. 


Company 


Individual 


Record a schedule of things to be done. They wil l be 
visible, on any view, coloured according to their status 
- Late. - Current, Pending and 

GREY - Completed. 


i 

Anniversary 


Diary 


Allows the grouping of ANY Files from outside 
Almanac with any records from within Almanac. Group 
achievers, salespersons, admin staff, creditors, current 
music project, print jobs on the go, local Acorn dealers 
who stock games. Serial Numbers, memos to staff, 
meetings (including who attended and minutes) etc... 

Events that are repeated each year such as wedding 
anniversaries and birthdays. 


Almanac is a Risc-OS compliant Desktop Organiser. It can 
be used equally well as a Personal Organiser by an 
individual or for keeping track of all the activity and 
correspondence associated with running a School, Business, 
Club, Church or other organisation. 

Almanac includes much more... Filters to allow a view of 
the data that you require... Import & Export... Printing... 

Join the HUNDRE of happy users today... 


enormance 

Features 

Value 

Overall 


Acorn Computing 

This is one package that will be 
used constantly. 

Acorn User 

Almanac is very easy to use. It is 
exceptionally powerful, and I have the 
feeling that once you have bought it, you’ll 
wonder how you ever managed without it. 
Le Computer 

The most important product since 
Impression. 

Never miss an appointment again. 
Never miss a birthday again. 

Never miss an anniversary again. 
Never forget that promised job. 
Keep a track of those letters. 
Instant response to customers on 
the phone... Linked events to 
Address. 

Risc-OS 3.1+ ONLY 


Price Held at £72.50 (£60 + Vat + £2 P&P). 
Includes FREE Filofax worth over £20 
£ Price Rise Imminent £ 






NEXT 




NEW KIDS IN THE DOCK 


PLUS 


How often have you spent a fortune on a worthy piece 
of software only to sec it tossed aside by your kids in a 
matter of minutes? Meanwhile another application 
seems to keep them occupied for days on end. 

Never again! Next month we ban adults from our 
educational reviews and let the kids have their say. 

CLIPART ROUNDUP 

Animals, banners, cartoons, buildings, 
cars, computers, plants, insects, famous faces, 
dinosaurs, bugs and slugs: 
these are just some of topics covered in that 
expansive territory known as clip art. 
We round up some of the best options. 

PROGRAMMER'S GUIDE 

Over three thousand pages of programming 
details make up what is now 
the most comprehensive guide to 
programming in Rise OS 3. 

Enter the territory 
of the expert programmer 
as we try out the new Programmer’s 
Reference Manuals from Acorn. 


THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO PORTABILTY 

Wc show you how to make the most of 
computing on the move. Check out our range of 
Pocket Book software and 
a selection of Acorn A4 add-ons. 

QUICKER DOS? 

Acorn’s PC Emulator could have a new competitor. 
Faster PC is a package that claims to be 
faster than the Acorn version 
without costing a fortune. 


STAR STRUCK 

Galactical gazing can be an illuminating 
pastime if you just have a little 
knowledge to help you along. Next month 
the latest astronomy program is put 
through its paces 

IN BRIEF 

A quick look at the stickiest backdrop 
and a new powerful editor. 

REGULARS 

The Moxon interview. Star Info, 
the latest education releases and more. 


To foe sure of 


DON’T MISS 

your Issue of 
Acorn User 


DEAR NEWSAGENT PLEASE ORDER MY REGULAR COPY OF BBC ACORN USER 


YOUR NAME 
ADDRESS 


BBC Acorn User is published by Redwood Pubfishing, 101 Bayham Street London NW1 OAG. 
Distributed by BBC Frontline, Park House, 117 Park Road, Peterborough 


108 8BC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 






SOFTWARE SHOWCASE 


EDUCATION | EDUCATION | STATISTICS 


CCCfJPCriFT Software for 

T - C f^7 /r J " Sedovs Science 

TWE SSERC GRAPHICS CD-R0M\f.^ c , 1 :^?!'. < 

^»For CHEMISTRY, PHYSICS, BIOLOGY, 
gf r TECHNOLOGY, LT V COMPUTING. 
One price - £150 includes free site licence 

Existing users ofour Graphics Libraries Quality for a discount 
pi C3 Off the above price for each Library disc previously bought. 

FIND ANY GRAPHIC FROM 8000 FILES/PROGS* 
WITH OUR FRIENDLY FRONT END PROGR AM 
N. B. > Alt our graphics were created on Arc 
machines using Draw T Vector, the Chemical 
Modeller, Revelation 2 etc ♦ All apparatus has 
been drawn to a set scale. Nothing has been 
J ' scanned in " from other sources , All fifes are 
directly relevant to British education (NOT 
ex-Mac ex-PC ex-USA based material!). If you 
have an Arc CD-ROM drive then you cannot 
afford to miss buying this for your school. 

* Drawfiles * Text- Pa ih * Sprites * DXF files * 

* Helpflles * Vector Libraries * New Graphics * 

* Interfacing files * Programs s Draw Praei. Guides * 

Please make all cheques payable to SSERC 

SSERC, 24 Bernard Terrace, Edinburgh EHS 9NX 
Tel. 031 668 4421 or Fax. 031 667 9344 
Send $AE (El please) for full information pack , Add VAT above. 


i Banner K 


udlian 

Soft 


Banner is a signwriting application for printing 
large wide banners quickly and easily. 


• Drop shadows plus a wide range of borders 

• Full colour control over all effects 

• Imports Draw files and Sprites 

• Uses standard RISC OS outline fonts 

• Only £23,50 inc, V.A.T. 

Kudlian Soft , 8 Barrow Road , Kenilworth 
Warwickshire, CVS 1EH Tel: 0926 - 851147 


ILogiSim 


DIGITAL 

LOGIC 

SIMULATOR 


ILogiSim enables students to design logic circuits using 
menus and pointer to select and place devices ui a circuit . 
Devices are then connected and iiuioroutcd using ibe mouse 
The completed circuit can then be 'run' in real time tm ihe 
computer screen, all logic states being shown clnmging 
dynamically as the student interacts with (he circuit 
Upio 25 dev ices in each circuit, choice of AND. OR . XOR 
NAND, NOR , JK llipftop. clock & cotimer. 

Cheques payable to RMD £15 illC. P&P 

1 2 PADSTOW ROAD, Dcnio Version t'2 

GRHASBY 

W | R R A L L4y 3 AQ (15 1 -677-4 2 W 

Devd)0|.i£3d waih 5ilux!m VihiCht ItihiH A.S E£ ' 


STATISTICS 

FIRST 

IS NOW 

MULTI -TASKING! 

Our new enhanced products 

1st and IstJR 

Have been released 

For full information 
contact 

Serious Statistical Software 
Lynwood Benty Heath Lane Wrliaston 
South Wirrai L64 1SD 

Tel: 051 327 4268 


SPECIAL NEEDS 


DATABASES 


\ for the A 3000 to A5000 

* NUMBER ZOO 

A first number program. 
Features 4 early skill games, 
plus a matching pairs game. 
Excellent value. Only £16.45 incL 




Selective Software 
64 Brooks Road 
STREET, BA 16 DPP 
Tel (0458} 43079 


C .J. COMPUTING 

SPECIAL NEEDS 


SALES - REPAIRS * SPECIAL NEEDS 


Please contact us for all your Acorn computers 
(Hardware & Peripherals) 

We specialise in tailoring computer systems for 



57 Westbury Hill, 
West bu ry- o n -Try m , 
Bristol 

Tel: (0272) 624553 


Another 
New Title 
Available! 

CASTLE OF DREAMS (9-1 3yrs) 

A brain teasing exploration in which memory and 
problem solving abilities will be truly pushed to their 
limits. 

The wicked Magician Kiingsor has made some spells 
which he keeps in a casket in- his castle. You must find this 
casket and throw it into the fiery mountain. 

Strength, resolve and skills are needed to battle with 
Kiingsor — encountering obstacles, and performing tasks 
such as The Courtyard, The Ma;e of Rooms, The Mosaic 
Floor, The Picture Gallery,. The Enchanted Pool and the 
Old Scroll. £25.99 

Write or call for a brochure: 

STORM EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE 

FREEPOST, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 4BR 
S 0935 817699 


copiiFLrrji'jc 



Quality Software for Special Needs, 
Nursery and Infant Education 


for FREE catalogue write p> 
BRILLIANT COMPUTING, 
FREEPOST, Box 142. Bradford, BD9 4BR. 
NO STAMP REQUIRED 
or phone (0274) 497617/578239 



I 


mpact-Pro! 

The Professional Database 



A new fully relational database 
with many new features 

Impact-Pro offers the same 
easy to use format as Impact! 
but with features for the more 
demanding user. 


If you use Impression, you 
must have Impact-Pro 


I mpact-Pro 

£65,00 + vat 

Impact? now 
£39*95 + vat 


S&foc&svie 

33, Restrop View 
Burton, Swindon 
SN59DG 

Tel: 0793 770021 



SUPPLIES 


SEPfflCQAIL (ROT 



ARCHIMEQES (31 bit Sofiwwrv ) 

Chuck Rock, r&buius, James Pond, S. W.I.V., Lotus Turbo ChaVoe 2, 

Manchester United. GODS. Lemmings £ 22:20 each . or any 2 for C 43:00 

Sim- Oly, Battle Chess ... E 28:00 each Populous, Heimdal. .. . £ 25:50 each 
INK JET PRINTER SUPPLIES 

Genuine Canon BJ-1 0 r 8J-2D Cartridge £ 1£:50 each ; order 2 M>r C 36:00 

04-10 Apple Styfewnier Reft* Kit (twin pack) by Ecojel £ 12:00 each 

pRMTe* BARGAINS 

Seicosha $L9G, 24 pin -da matrix, 00 coArmn, mono £ 210:00 

Seicosha 5L95 , 24 pm dot main*, SO column, colour £245:00 I PosUaa 

Canon UP 3, laser, 2Mb, 0 ppm, lure 600 dpi £ 1,269:00 | wr 

LIS TINO PAPER ( i SO cot, wida} 

t 'yyt (2000 sheets), pten wfeie. SOgrrr , , £ 1 9.00 J order 2 lot only £ 33 00 

Scratf |f«ir wtitr wtfi Ct**qv* ■ P.O # lo 

o Cept All 7. 35 ftokefcy Drive, Kenlqm 

l/IXgn a l/ITOIl Newcastle Upon Tyne. N£3 4 JV 


BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 109 














SOFTWARE SHOWCASE 


PUBLIC DOMAIN 

1 


PUBUC DOMAIN j 

i DTP 






SKYFALL PD 


Do you own eitIier an; 

A 701 0 A 7020 

A 5000 »■ A 4000 

IF you do, I’m sure you know tNat 
youn MAchitNE caw re Ad 1600 k discs 

But did you know tIiat SkyFAlL 

can pnovide you wItFi 1 600k discs 
full of PD, TWICE AS Muck AS NORMAL 

For aIL tNe dETAits send For our 
aU new Summer CataIoque & Disc, 


Pirns? send £1 for the Catalogue <£ Demo Disc to; 

PO Box 2220, B'ham, B43 5RZ. 

Enquiries: 021 358 7078. 


P '4* PiCAt 

(Q) 


** p 


FONT 

SALE! 


Rise OS 3 fon\ Ms I A 2 are now just £5 each] 

Over 50 fonts in each pack, exclusive to Penguin PD. 

Plus tiie 25th Person to order both will receive their order 
free, of charge! Catalogue + Disk still only £1 

P ENGU IN pUBUC DOMAIN 

PO Box 273, London SW4 7XB 




Dept AU1, 34 Norbreck Close, Great 
I San key, Warrington, Cheshire, WAS 2SX.1 


Special Offers - SIX Discs - £3.99 

Offer Number One - PD Starter Pack 

Catalogue and Extra Disc (see betow) r A disc lull of 
PD utilities, A disc full □( oushne fonts, 'Nirvana - the 
new BPP McgaDomo and a Games disc including 
Arkaniod and Hexasams. 

Offer Number Two ■ DTP Pack 
Two discs full of outline fonts (different from Staler 
Pack), A disc full of DTP utilities. The image Factory 
Shareware DRAW ClipArt Oise, Plus Two more discs 
of high quality DRAW ClipArt. 


£>AM £5 

Why spENd £25 

ON jUST ONE q/\ME, 

wkEN you could Iiave 

100 

f$R ThE SAME pRiCE. 

\ Send just £25 to receive 
20 discs of the best Bugetware : 
-Garres ever! Putting many 
(Wmmercial efforts to shame. 


w^ircov|v\i 

PO Box 1 927 : Sutton Coldfield : B74 3GZ 




M® 1 


The PO Library 


The No.l name in 
Public Domain 

For all RIHt US 2 & 3 computers 
I imr. A 3 GOO/ A 5IHH1M30 1 U/ A rehi medes S 


CLIPART MEGABUNDLE - 2100 dips for draw/paint etc 
compressed from 33 discs - just £20 all inclusive. 

GAMES BUNDLE * 10 Discs of the best PD games! - £12.50 
EDUCATION BUNDLE 2 -10 Discs filled with software 
suitable for children including 4 language tutors! - £12.50 

FONT BUNDLE - 8 Discs containing loads of outline fonts 
(some RISC OS 3 only) - £10 
UTILITY BUNDLE - 8 Discs of great utilities - £10 
700 Disc Pick *n* Mix Catalogue disc - still only £1.00 


Aren Angel PD, PO Box 41„ Exeter EX4 3EN. 
Enquiries (0392) -422 759 


JL, FIVE star 

^ Marketing 
MIDSUMMER 


I 

SPECIAL 

KEYSTROKE DEMO V2.1 (Quantum Software). 
A powerful utility* which will control functions of 
another program! Brings frequently used actions 
or combinations of actions down to simple key 
presses. Use as a text macro utility , and more. 
Plus the pa me LEMINGS by Tom Cooper. Send 
£1 for our Archimedes cal Jdemo disc OR £2 
for our demo plus a great game - INVADERS. 

Five Slar Marketing* IS Woburn Close, 
Bushey, Herts* WI)2 3XA. 


Send £ LOO for a copy of our latest 
catalogue, OR send £1 .50 for a copy 
of our catalogue and an extra disc 
with around 1600k of compressed 
Public Domain software. 

P tease ttutkr cheques payaMc to The Data Stream ' 


ART20 — New all-modes painting and 
image processing software: £60 inc. 
Send blank disc for demo copy. 


New [outline fonts, fully hinted and 
scaffolded, from £4.00, S,a.e, for details. 


COLOUR PRINTOUTS of your graphics 
on BJC-800. £2.00 handling plus £2.00 
per A3 sheet; £1.00 per A4 sheet. 


TEKOA GRAPHICS 

16 Murray Road, Rugby CV21 3JN 
Tel: (0788) 571434 



Quality Clip Art 

_ W 

^ r Addictive Games 
Picture CD-ROMs 
XL 4 Joystick interface 

Ask for our FREE catalogue 

Dept AU7, PQ Box 42, Peterborough, 

Cambs PEI 2TZ © 0733 315439 


Someone's Just got their copy of 

TobleMote 

Quick & easy lo use - special 
features save hours of effort! 
Tables can be edited as text in 
Impression, or used as Draw Files 
Now only £2 1 until 3 s1 August 
'1 found the application very easy and 
intuitive to use’\./exlremcly flexible"- Archive, May 93 

Dalriada, 145 Albion Si., KENILWORTH 
Warwickshire, CVS 2FY. (0926) 53901 



CHEATS 


Underpriced software from 



3.08®“ 

The Hacker 

The original and ben games hacker 
now comes Miftfi even more - 70 freely 
distributable cheats, new external code 
to turn game graphics into sprites, rip w w ^ 

BASIC and music. and to compare s j 12 ; 

memory with a file. For the paltry sum ^ « 0 

of £$ you get a feature-packed yet easy Jj S. ¥ ® 
to use program with which you can 3 E -o S 

instantly cheat, and create your own '£ 3 -e ^ tt 

cheats running independently. 3. ^ i € 5 

Haw ifet only luibr ut hut w J ™ ^ 


thcquE* payable- ro 'DoggySoh'. to: 

1, BlacXhon* Crtiteni Afflersham, Backf.. 
HPj, jHP Tet 04 P 4 - 43 1 9 1 6 (tveij 
F.h;0494-*75«7(i 


The all-singing, all-dancing 
desktop disassembler! 

This program makes disassembling 
and understanding ARM code 
programs easy. Et has far too many 
features to list here, and is invaluable 
for the Archimedes programmer. 
Includes; Multiple fifes tuu# views, 
g ; FAST user-configurable 
— ^ 2 ^ disassembly, labels to aid 
5*1 £ | v viewing fifes, onto Jobefs 
t | t0 * BASIC, linked, and C, 
g Sau powerful searches, user 
O g " friendly design, easy edit... 



DISCOUNT SOFTWARE 



8 fridrfjU* GftfS-ww* 

SLdjp&m 

£3B$C 

&P £2 extra per item. 

Discount Software* - MO* VAT to pay, P< 

Artwwhi 16 $ 00 

Compassion 33.00 

ChanwlMn 3 S 00 

Eurtfm 1 19.00 

inify-tii;. ,j:-i 1 1 (ipcciai otter! 1 46.00 

CWflSor, SS 00 

Pwwbwo* tv.oq 

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110 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1993 




















Hard Discs for A3020 from £ 100.00 + VAT 
Hard Discs for A4000 or A5000 

from ONLY £ 100.00 + VAT = £ 1 17.50 
to 245MB for £ 289.00 + VAT = £ 339.57 

MEMORY upgrades 

A3010 1-2MB £ 45 inc VAT 

A3010 1-2MB expandable to 4MB £ 55 inc VAT 
A3010 4MB £ 150 inc VAT 

A3 020 & A4000 2-4MB £ 75 inc VAT 

A540 4MB Ram £ 250 inc VAT 

300/400/A3000 ARM3 Upgrades ONLY £ 145+ VAT 

Special Pricing also on Ram Upgrades for the 310, 410, 420,A3000, 540 & A5000. 


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R R O F I L 


THE MOXON INTERVIEW 

ROBIN SAXBY 


Arm Ltd is the jewel in the crown of the 
microprocessor industry. Robin Saxby, 
managing director of Arm, explains why 



D riving to Arm’s offices, 
north of Cambridge, it’s 
hard to square the serenity of 
the scenery with the cutting- 
edge technology Arm pro- 
duces. Arm is the new darling 
of the microprocessor industry 
and despite the relaxed atmos- 
phere, it's a hive of activity. 
According to managing direc- 
tor Robin Saxby, Acorn users 
have a lot to look forward to 
this year, 

4 When we announce the 
Ann 7 00 in the last quarter, it 
will have an even higher per- 
formance than the 600 family/ 
he says. The Arm 7 00 will be 
at least twice as fast as an 
Arm3; it may be higher, but we 
can’t say without actually hav- 
ing a silicon version to test/ 

So could this have anything 
to do with the rumoured new 
Acorn machine? 

‘Acorn will definitely be 
using the Arm700 family in its 
new range of machines, as well 
as the Vidc20 video controller, 
ft's safe to say that Acom will 
be releasing a range of very 
good new machines/ 

Although the Arm? hasn't 
been committed to silicon yet, 
it’s easy to see Robin’s point. 
He showed me an A540 with 
Vidc2G and a floating point 
accelerator chip fitted and, 
believe me, it’s fast. Imagine 
that with a new Arm 7. 

So what is the relationship 
like between Acom and Arm? 

4 A two-way street. If Arm Ltd 
is successful. Acorn benefits 
immensely, not just in terms of 
finance, but because if more 
people use Arm chips, it 
reflects well on Acorn’s choice 
of processor. 

'Acorn also brings consider- 
able advantages to us. The fact 
that there’s a customer down 
the road from us who is using 
Arm chips practically and suc- 
cessfully is good for us, and 
Acorn products such as Replay 
help us demonstrate our chips 
that much more effectively/ 

A healthy situation borne 
out by Acorn’s success with 


the A 5 000 and A30 10. On the 
other hand. Acorn is just 
another customer as far as Arm 
is concerned. Arm Ltd is a 
joint venture company, with 
partners Acorn, Apple, VLSI 
and NIF, and, according to the 
MD his job is ‘to find a com- 
mon path, mutually beneficial 
to as many partners as poss- 
ible’. Arm Ltd designs chips 
for its customers; the semicon- 
ductor licensees (VLSI, GEC 
Plessey and Texas instru- 
ments) do the selling. 

But how do the Arm chips 
manage to cover such a wide 
range of applications? The ans- 


wer lies in the combination of 
software and hardware which 
Arm provides with its chips. 

Look at the GEC Plessey 
brochure for the Arm6 family, 
and you will see a Platform 
Independent Evaluation card 
(PIE) designed to plug into any 
computer equipped with an 
RS232 port. Software support 
consists of C compiler, assem- 
blers, linkers and other tools to 
produce Arm code using other 
pi at form s, notab I y PCs and 
Suns; this support enables 
existing C code (for example) 
to be compiled for use with a 
new processor very quickly. 


‘Support for Arm products is 
very good/ assures Robin. 
‘We have a lead as far as 
knowledge and expertise go, 
and as software support 
becomes more important, that 
lead will be all the more vital/ 

This flexible nature of the 
Arm chip lends itself to many 
uses. Acorn's machines have 
been bringing in royalties from 
computer sales since day one. 
The Apple Newton and 3 DO 
multiplayer (which both use 
Arm chips) will only start to 
provide income when they go 
on sale at the end of the sum- 
mer, Meanwhile, the Texas 
Instruments deals will come to 
financial fruition in three to 
four years, and smart cards (as 
used by the French telephone 
service) should prove a mas- 
sive market by the year 2000. 
According to Robin ‘Arm will 
be shifting millions of chips 
next year, and tens of millions 
in the not-too-distan; future/ 

But what about the develop- 
ment of the chip range? When 
Arm Ltd was set up, plans 
were drawn to chart Lhe pro- 
posed development of the 
company, up to the Arm9. The 
next step is the release of the 
Arm? family, and next year 
Arm will launch a new Arm? 
family member, the Arm 7 DM, 
with an improved multiply 
function for use with, for 
example, graphics processing. 

The future seems clear. ‘The 
Arm 8 family, scheduled for 
1995, will probably be twice 
the speed of the Arm7\ says 
Robin, 'and we’re hiring new 
staff to start work on the next 
range of chips. Tve already 
started to talk to people about 
the development of the Arm9.' 

Following the imminent 
release of Apple’s Newton and 
the 3DO multiplayer system, 
are 4 a number of other pro- 
ducts that involve Arm chips 
which are just as exciting’, he 
goes on. After only two-and-a- 
half years in business. Arm Ltd 
is about to become very big 
indeed. 


112 BBC ACORN USER AUGUST 1 993 


JULIAN ANDERSON 



fipply bold to selection or at caret 


news from Colton Software 


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COLTON software 


2 Signet Court, Swanns Road 
Cambridge CBS SLA 
Telephone 0223 311881 
Fax 0223 312010 



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SCHOOL CHILDREN 
PROVE THAT NEW 
BYPASS WIL DAMAGE 
THE LOCAL 
ENVIRONMENT 


EXCLUSIVE 



USING an innovative new 
program on their 
classroom computer 
children from St. Chad's 
School have shown town 
planners that a proposed 
new bypass would have a 
detrimental effect on their 
local environment. 

The children surveyed the 
local area and fed details into 
their Topographer program, 
which allows them to look at 
the relevant area in 3D, They 
then added the new road along 
its proposed route and it 
became obvious that the road 
would not only affect an area 
renowned for its badger 
population but would also 


distract children in the 
classroom as they would be 
able to see traffic moving 
along the new road. 

The children even went as 
far as to propose a new route 
for the road to the town 
planners. The proposed route 
would have a negligible 
impact on the area but still 
provide the much needed relief 
to existing roads. 



A SERIES of sweeping proposals which 
would abolish free parking in district 
shopping centres, change some bin 
collections, increase lettings charges and 
scale down mileage claims by some 
council officers, have been announced by 
Labour. 

In the first indication of their intentions $i r 
seizing power jointly with the Conservab' 
party has produced a ^ 

1,000 


• REDUCING main ten' 
Other ecom 
departmental b 
cutting scho' 
fees, 

Th 




iano teacher 
lot teach him 
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Topographer is a major application for the Geography curriculum which allows 
children (and teachers) to have lots of fun whilst learning all about maps, contour 
lines, valleys, rivers etc. In fact Topographer covers virtually all items found on a map. 

The real break through with Topographer is its 3D section which allows you to 
convert a 2D map into a 3D model on screen. Imagine turning a set 
of flat contour lines on a 2D map into a 3D model which dearly 
shows the hill — no more cardboard cut out models or papier 
mache! You define where you look from, and what you look at. 

Topographer also covers aspects of the IT and maths curriculum 
vvith its modelling capabilities. Just stop for a minute and think of 
the projects that you could do with Topographer. You could make 
a map of the local area with churches, pubs, 
woods etc. and then view it from various 
places. If there is a bypass proposed you could 
add it in to the existing landscape and sec 
where it is visible from and what impact it is 
likely to have on the community. I'm sure you can think of a 
hundred and one topics, 

♦ Fully RISC OS 2 & 3 Compliant and 1 megabyte friendly ♦ 
Suitable for all ages from 6 onwards ♦ Easy and quick entry of all 
symbols (over 100) ♦ Wooded areas which translate into 
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can be linked to the national grid references ♦ Powerful 3D mode 
giving a true representation of the landscape ♦ Stunning 3D models which can be 
saved as a sprite file for use with other applications. 


£79.95 inc. VAT 

All specifications subject to alteration without notice 


AVAILABLE * APRIL 1 " T 1993 





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